Facing No Fate
by TSCCS3Fan
Summary: A Chronicle of Johns war with Skynet. Spanning from Judgment Day until Skynet's collapse. Continuation of my "Season 3" story, though it is not necessary to read beforehand. *FINAL CHAPTER is uploaded*
1. Chapter 1

**Facing No Fate**

**TSCCS3Fan**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any Terminator rights in any media. This story was created for fun, not for profit.**

**Once again thanks to the cast and crew of the TV show for their inspiration, and to James Cameron for having that lovely nightmare all those years ago.**

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**Chapter 1: The Beginning Of The End**

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**100 Miles Northwest of Calgary, Canada**

**April 21, 2011**

**6:18PM**

* * *

_ Here I was, John Connor, being locked in a room with a cyborg to wait out J-Day_

_ It wasn't so much being locked up with her, I didn't mind that, it was the helplessness. Not being able to save every single person that I could possibly save._

_ On our way to the bunker, I'd wanted to hang my head out of the window of the Humvee and scream at the top of my lungs for the people to run._

_ That wouldn't have been the best thing to do but I'll be damned, it was better then sitting in a hole and letting everyone outside die._

_ Sometimes I just wanted to grab people and explain to them that everything they were experiencing was a gift, but I knew it was impossible.  
I'd be thrown into a looney-bin like Mom had._

_ And that would have defeated the very purpose of driving to the bunker in the first place._

_ So in the brooding kid routine that I'd pretty much perfected over the years, I sat back in the large vehicle, gritted my teeth, and hoped that everyone in the city was planning a vacation before nightfall._

* * *

The darkness carried on for what seemed like forever. John looked out at the snowy landscape from the hill where he and his best friend were situated. It was cold, he was damned sure of that. John had always imagined the end of days as being something a little more grand then sitting in a bunker, but Cameron had flat out insisted on it. He knew the day had been coming, and he tried to prepare himself for when it actually arrived. Yet now that it was here, now that it was happening he couldn't keep himself from thinking, _what if?_

_What if I were to stop it? What if I could do something immediately after the fact to lessen the pain of letting half the planets inhabitants die? What if I wasn't stuck in a bunker with a girl that just happened to be a machine?_ As the last thought crept across his brain the doors of the bunker sealed shut with a thunderous clamp. Sealing himself and the girl behind him inside the security of the concrete and steel structure while everyone outside the doors faced almost certain death. _That's it,_ his mind told him, _next time you open these doors the entire world will be on fire. _He turned to look at Cameron who had walked over to the table and started quietly field stripping a weapon.

The room was a misused bomb shelter, half full of oil drums and electrical equipment. It was old as well, the ceilings were at least 8ft tall. That usually meant it was from the seventies, possibly the eighties. It was definitely giving off that 'Cold War' era vibe. Nothing was covering the walls, they were pure concrete and steel beams, even devoid of paint. The only thing that gave it away as being a shelter, other then the obvious, were the various old components for radio terminals and the Humvee near the back. Cameron had assured him that the area they currently resided in would receive nuclear effects during the following twenty four hours and that they had to at least wait until ten hours after the first blast before venturing out.

One thing that lifted John's spirits was Cameron had finally gotten her wish, they'd moved to Canada. Placating her was a new habit of Johns. Anything she 'wanted' or felt she needed to do was high up on his priority list. Since his mother had died she was the only 'family' he could turn to, and she made for quite the understanding individual. She was never too busy or tired to drop whatever she was doing and hear him out. That was something that John really appreciated from her.

Turning away from the door he couldn't help but notice the girl now seated at the table. Every movement she made was calculated, wasting no extra effort in her process of cleaning the weapon. She had disassembled the entire rifle, having neatly and categorically placed everything in order on the table, and started cleaning each and every single individual piece to the best of her ability. He stood in awe of her ability and focus, something that no human could ever hope to achieve.

Taking another glance around the relatively packed room and knowing there was nothing else to do, he made his way over to the nearest vacant space near a wall and sat down. His back and legs relaxed from their hike earlier that morning as he leaned up against the wall. Stealing a Humvee hadn't been easy, but it was one of the safest vehicles to travel in post J-Day according to Cam. Soon his mind began racing back to the thoughts of what would soon be happening outside. Clenching his jaw tightly he slowly seethed and muttered explicatives to himself.

His hands fled to his pockets looking for his cigarettes before remembering that Cameron had ripped the pack in two earlier that morning. If he lived to be a hundred years old, it wouldn't be long enough to ever hear Cam not lecture him on the dangers of smoking again. That was one thing about her that he sometimes wished he could change, Terminators made for the ultimate nags. Deciding to use his mind instead of an external stimulant he closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe slowly. Each breathe bringing him closer and closer to being 'centered', or at least calm enough to not want to break down the bunker door and usher everyone inside. A slight calm came over him as he pushed his mind away from the thoughts of mankind being extinguished in a few short hours.

As if sensing his melancholy from across the room Cameron started humming to herself while cleaning the weapon pieces in her hands. Eyes closed and shaking his head, John smiled as he recognized the tune. The first thing he was going to do at the end of the war was to travel back in time and prevent Cameron from ever hearing of Deadmau5. Ever since hearing the song 'Strobe' it'd been engrained in her CPU, and while she was adorable for emulating her 'favorite' song, it made him want to claw his ears off at times.

He sat and watched her in silence as she hummed along and continued cleaning the rifle. The sheer precision of her task partly clearing his mind for the time being. Even Cameron couldn't help his thoughts from wondering again though, the melancholy of his mood returned in full force. His vision was replaced with scenes from childhood, and those of the past 2 years of living with his mother, Derek, and Cameron. He couldn't help but think of the people he'd came into contact with and what they'd be doing around this time in the night. That thought calmed him a little bit though, knowing that people in his time zone would at least be meeting their doom in their sleep.

It wasn't long until he was pulled from reliving the better moments of his life by a voice in the distance. At first he could barely hear it, but soon it started to take shape into that familiar comforting tone he knew so well.

"John?" Over at the table Cameron had finished her weapons task and reassembled the rifle. She had seen the hurt expression on his face and wanted to remedy it.

Snapping out of his daydream, Connor looked up at her slowly, "Yea Cam?...Yea?" He tried to focus on her, and push the former thoughts from his mind. They still lingered though, even at the sight of his best friend smiling towards him.

Her head remained focused on him, never swaying or turning. "Everything is going to be okay, John." A scraping of metal could be hear in the room as she pushed the chair back and made her way over to him.

John eyed her curiously. The blast from Sarkissian had done more then they both knew. There had been damage to her chip, but it also unlocked part of the extended neural network that allowed her to learn and interact with humans more easily. Even if the cost of such a thing was her trying to kill him after the blast, it was worth everything he could think of.

She had began developing emotions and certain human traits over the past year and watching it happen had been a privilege to John. Everything before that day always had a purpose, it had to go towards aiding her mission. It was a cold hard fact that he hated to remind himself of, but it was true.

No matter how he felt about her, he couldn't deny that she was still a machine at some moments. She couldn't help but act that way sometimes though, and he knew that. Deep down she was no different then any other machine that had tried to kill him before. He didn't hold that against her though, nobody one Earth was as innocent and deadly as Cameron. Just because she had been in a 'mood' that day didn't mean he couldn't forgive her. It wasn't until sometime later that she told him that she still had to ignore the order to kill him on sight whenever she saw him that let John know she had just proven her loyalty to him. John of all people knew how it was like to just want to be treated as normal.

Her developing emotions were strange but almost childlike whenever she experienced them. Gradually as she had even more access to the emotion though, she could react in a more human fashion. Most of the time she would experience the emotion then remain frozen like a statue trying to figure out what was happening. It was only after John explained things to her that she lowered her guard back down. The first time she'd experienced happiness was a fond memory of John's.

They'd been walking through a public park enjoying the remaining time in the world. There were families enjoying the park, animals scurrying around to catch toys, and then there was John and Cameron relaxing on a park bench. To John it was a relaxing sight at the park to simply see people still living and enjoying their time spent on the Earth. He breathed in a breath of fresh air and turned to Cameron, her head was in the middle of a methodical sweep of the perimeter when something caught her eye.

John couldn't help but notice her nearly run over to the purple lilac's that were blooming near the walk-path. She brought her fingers up to the flower as if they would break. As her skin touched the velvety texture of the flowers she beamed the brightest smile he had ever seen. A breeze rolled through the bushes and brought the aroma up to her nose, intensifying her pleasure even further. Soon the scent of the flowers overpowered her and she turned back to John looking as if she would die if they couldn't uproot the large bush and carry it home with them. Almost as if she were allowed to uproot an entire row of bushes at her whim, she pouted as he chuckled a, "No."

Nearly as fast as the emotion had over came her, Cameron's face scowled into a horrific frown, "Whats happening John?" Her hands shot up to her face to cover her mouth as she was stricken with grief over the prospect of loosing her control. If there was one thing she feared above John's death, it was the loss of control she maintained over her body.

John merely chuckled, "Cameron." His finger nudged her chin upwards so she could look at him, "Cam it's okay." Suppressing more laughter he continued to simply look at her as a flurry of emotions rolled across her face.

"It's not okay. What's happening? I don't know whats going on," her eyes were searching his face as if the answer was written on his forehead, "This doesn't make sense."

His hands slowly massaged hers before he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. She was shaking from the sudden overload of data that the flowers had produced. John chuckled before reaching down and plucking a flower from the shrub. Her eyes immediately darted to his hand as it brought the flower near her, "What are you doing."

"Making you happy," he watched her eyes as they opened wide in surprise at the sight of the purple flower again. She reached out in front of her and took it from him gladly. A smile crept up from her lips as she turned it over in her hands, giggling to herself after a few moments. He stood there and watched her experiencing happiness for the first time. She allowed him to take the flower after a few moments and tuck it behind her right ear.

Cam looked up at him with her gorgeous chocolate eyes and with an innocent voice whispered, "Happy?" Her fingers were still playing with the floral object nestled in her hair.

"Well, yea," he laughed out loud this time. John didn't like to laugh at her when she was being emotional, after all it wasn't her fault she didn't know how she was feeling. "Try and describe what this flower is making you feel, ya know."

She pondered his words carefully. _How was I feeling? This sensation is strange and requires further analysis then a simple 'You're happy'. _"I..." she tried to complete the sentence but failed. Her head refocused on him hoping he had an explanation for her.

"Things are constantly paining us in this world Cam. Practically everything around us is painful to someone." He walked over to a tree behind the row of flowers and slapped his hand against it, "This tree, makes me happy. It lets me know the bombs haven't dropped yet. But there are some people who may be allergic to the pollen it produces at this time of year, so it can be painful to them." Bringing his hand down from the tree he walked back over to her and took her hand, "Life is about finding what makes you happy and shutting out all of the pain and suffering."

Her head tilted as she listened to him speak, it was as if he possessed a great wisdom. A wisdom that many people took for granted everyday. "And this flower makes me happy?" Again her fingers began playing with the object nestled behind her ear.

"Well," he chuckled and squeezed her hand, "either it makes you happy or you're just being obnoxiously cute at the moment."

She smiled at him for explaining and for reassuring her. Tonight she would treat him to something extra special. No, pancakes would simply not do for this occasion. Instead she would fix him the biggest steak he had ever seen, John loved steak and she 'aimed to please'.

"John? Everything's going to be okay." His friend gently placed her arm around his shoulder as he finished reliving the memory. Immediately trying to clear his mind again now that she was calling for his attention.

Before he'd been stupid enough to actually ask her what she was doing he received his answer. A small rumble began in the distance followed by a slight shudder of the ground around him and finally a growing roar filled his ears. It wasn't enough to overwhelm his senses, in fact he wouldn't have heard it if it hadn't been so quiet in the bunker; John knew what the noise was though and what its actions meant for the outside world.

Subconsciously his hands balled themselves into fists as his body racked with tension. The blast outside was one in the thousands of missiles that would be wrecking the Earth outside, but the finality of the situation finally hit John full force. The tension from his body gradually gave way to Cameron's hand on his back, rubbing small circles to help with his pain. His legs went numb at the feeling of helplessness.

"I'm here to help John," her voice was barely above a whisper. Almost as if talking at normal volume would damage him somehow. She knew how to comfort him, and right now that was exactly what he needed. He needed her. Ignoring all of the data that was flooding her HUD, she continued her gentle kneading of his back.

As if snapping out of a daydream for the third time in a few minutes he turned his head to meet her gaze. Her face was nothing if not serene, nothing in the world mattered to her except for him. That was one of the few things he resolutely knew about Cameron, "Cam?...Wha...What now?" His voice betrayed his desire to mask the feeling of anger and despair currently controlling his body.

Her face tilted in that classic trademark expression as he continued, "How am I supposed to unite a species that has done nothing but destroy themselves since the beginning of their existence? How am I supposed to go about saving the world huh?" He paused for a few moments before adding, "I'm just a kid."

Her rubbing of his back subsided as she pulled him closer to her, allowing his head to rest on her left collarbone. Looking down at him, she could see just how upset he was. His eyes never moved from the walls across from him as she subtly ran her hand through his hair, "Because you are.."

"Don't say it!" he snapped, a little too forcefully than he intended to. He hated being reminded of who he was, and just what he was supposed to do. The time spent in the future had clearly showed him that he was prepared for what was to come, but he still didn't want to meet it head on. There was nothing in his power to stop J-Day though, and he knew that. Cyberdyne had taught him that much. You can postpone the event but you can't prevent it. Humanity was too in touch with technology now to even try and prevent it. Nothing short of destroying every single piece of computer equipment around the world would keep Judgment Day from happening. And that as John knew, was impossible.

As he cut her off she again ignored the logical data presented across her HUD and helped him to relax back into her embrace. Her processor began gathering files from her many nights of watching television and movies to aid her in a suitable answer when she again ignored it and simply stated, "One day at a time John. One day at a time."

Seeing that her words had relaxed him again she silently prided herself on accomplishing her task. Without giving it a second thought she brought her right hand up and clasped it with his, their fingers intertwining with each other. The touch brought her comfort knowing that John allowed her to be this close. Sensors in her fingers lit up her HUD as they made contact with his skin. Everything she'd need to know about John, all right in front of her eyes.

Not realizing she had closed her eyelids, she opened them to find John breathing slowly in her lap. Had she ignored the data presented to her now she would have surely 'freaked' as John would say. However over the past two years she had plenty of data on John's sleeping patterns, and was happy he'd chosen to sleep in her vicinity.

The slow rise and fall of his chest coupled with the slight movement of his lips were enough for her to smile. Then he started mumbling, and this peaked her interest. It wasn't that this was a first time occasion of mumbling in his sleep, but it was the first time she wasn't laden with a chore and could observe him freely.

She sat there perfectly content studying every twitch in his muscles, the once soft lines on his face that had been marred by his time in the future, the way his eyes seemed to wonder aimlessly beneath his eyelids. Even the slightest detail of him sleeping was recorded and documented under a new index in her system; sleep.

Remembering back to their many talks of the future war she began to smile again. John had assured her she would remain at his side for as long as possible. Though many people would simply be too frightened to even come near her if they knew what she was, she took pleasure in knowing that John would be there with her.

After studying him for nearly two hours she began replaying the indexed video feed. Then the equivalent of video editing software opened up in her HUD and started editing his sleeping patterns to create an entirely new pattern, minus his mumblings. _Observation is key to understanding anything,_ she thought as the finished sleep pattern began it's exporting procedure. Once finished, she used it as a template to control her motor functions for the time being. To any other person watching her and John, it would look as if she fell asleep against the wall next to the future leader of mankind.

Having been in the equivalent of standby mode for nearly an hour-fifteen-minutes and thirty-nine seconds; Cameron was 'woken' by the sound of the radio beside her right thigh. Though the volume was turned down enough that it couldn't wake John, she still hissed internally at the thought of the contraption nudging him from his slumber.

She recognized the vocal data of the man on the radio, it was John Henry. His voice crept out of the speaker to her audio receptors, "Attention survivors of Earth. I am John Henry. If you can hear my voice, know that we are beginning to fight back at this invasion. Every precaution to stem the further loss of human lives is being taken, but I must urge anyone listening to abandon their homes immediately. If you have access to a vehicle, please use it to exit any populated area and head to the nearest unaffected location. There will be stations of peace in this war, mankind's light will not be stuffed out, together we will both prevail." The message began repeating itself again as Cameron removed her hand from John's grasp and picked up the microphone.

Pinching down the button to talk she spoke clearly but very softly into the speaker, "TOK715 calling 1015814 85141825. TOK715 calling 1015814 85141925."

A few moments later John Henry's message kept playing over the airwaves but another voice began to emanate on a audio frequency that humans wouldn't be able to hear, "1015814 85141825, John Henry calling TOK715. Repeat John Henry calling Cameron Phillips. Come in."

"Affirmative," she muttered, knowing that John couldn't possibly hear her.

"Hello Miss Phillips, how are you today?" the voice on the other end asked in the most monotone style possible.

Pausing for a fraction of a second to determine John's well being she responded, "We are fine. At daybreak we will begin our descent and meet you on the border." After she hailed John Henry she noticed a changed in John's sleeping. He had begun to shiver slightly. Knowing that if she removed his head from her lap he would wake up, she couldn't retrieve the blanket on the table she'd left. John was a notoriously light sleeper. Knowing of only one other solution she raised her internal body temperature to 103.2 degrees, giving John enough residual heat to keep him warm.

"Very well, I will be waiting for you there Ms. Phillips," the voice stated. A few moments later and the room had grown silent again. Almost 'wanting' to return to her sleeping pattern with John, she decided against it as he began emanating a train of thought in his sleep.

Were it not for her acute hearing she might not have heard him talking in his sleep. One word substituted itself for another repeatedly, "Mom...love you..." He began fidgeting in her lap, his arms trying to grasp at something or someone that obviously wasn't there.

Not thinking for a moment more then she was required to Cameron leaned in close to his head. Her vocal processor perfectly mimicking Sarah Connor's voice, "Dorothy vivia en medio de las grandes praderas de Kansas, con el tio Henry, que era granjero, y tia Em, que era la esposa del granjero..."* Her voiced trailed on, reciting what she knew was one of the most comforting things his mother had ever done for him; reading The Wizard of Oz in Spanish.

Almost instantly his heartbeat and breathing stabilized at the sound of his mothers voice. The frown on his face replaced with perfect peace as he settled back into Cameron's lap. Smiling to herself again she continued the story that John loved.

A few more hours passed before she was forced to wake him. John had turned over onto his side in his sleep and was breathing his hot breath on her stomach. Again she lowered her hand to his face and caressed it, hoping that was enough to wake him. For a light sleeper, he was bound and determined to never get out of the bed in the mornings. She giggled to herself while remembering him telling her, _I am not a morning person._

"John," she shook his shoulder slightly. The young man in her lap only mumbled an incoherent, "Five more minutes," before nuzzling back down into her jeans. She knew of multiple ways to wake John, many having been used before. It would be hard to splash him with water though, with no discernible water source near them. Settling for a sure fire but relatively painless way to wake him, she reached down and opened his eyelids with her thumb and index finger.

"Its time to get up sleepy head," she giggled again. His eyes began dancing around the room and trying to flutter themselves closed again. Her fingers remained firmly in place as John woke up and tried to shoo her hand away.

"Alright, alright! I'm up!" He opened both his eyes to see Cameron looming over him with a large grin on her face. "Oh you think you're so funny," he himself laughed as he said it.

"I know I am, but what are you?" she retorted, knowing full well that he was teasing her.

"Wow. Really?" John forced himself up onto his elbows while talking, "We are going to have to work on your jargon before you can mingle with the survivors."  
Her head tilted again but the smile remained in place, "Why? I fooled you not so long ago. Remember?"

"Yea, yea, yea," he grimaced. She never let that drop, and it was bad enough that she had an impeccable memory. "In my defense it was because you were the hottest tractor selling offspring I'd ever seen."

Cameron continued her giggling as she stood up and brushed the dust and dirt off of her pants. Her appearance always mattered to her, apocalyptic world or not. "John Henry will meet us on schedule, we should get going as soon as you've eaten."

_Way to break the mood Cam,_ he laughed at himself for thinking that. He too stood up and sauntered over to the table on the opposite side of the bunker, "Whats for breakfast?" Knowing full well that Cameron had no access to a stove, he still felt compelled to say, "And please for the love of God tell me its not pancakes."

She opened the back door of the Humvee and began rifling through the various MRE's they had stored there. Judging from John's tone she knew that he was intending to keep the light-hearted mood alive. Aiming to follow John's wishes she removed her hands from the breakfast meals and began searching through the dinner box.

Pulling her hand out as she clutched a MRE meal packet she scanned the contents and noted that while it was not particularly nutritious for a breakfast, it would suffice. She glided back over to him and tossed him the meal, "Spaghetti and meatballs."

He sat back in his chair stunned, "You are the best. Person. Ever!" Tearing into the pack he started ravenously eating the meal within. Cameron sat across from him and watched him curiously, half expecting him to breath at some point in the stuffing of his face.

"You called me a person," she said hesitantly. The smallest crook of a smile began to overtake her lips.

John looked up from his bag of pulp for the first time since digging in and swallowed an entire mouthful of unchewn food. "Uh...yea Cam," he didn't give the words a second thought before returning to his meal.

Wanting to reach out and hug him as intensely as possible, Cameron remained seated and beamed with pride at the man in front of her. He continued stuffing his face at such a rate that it reminded her of Derek Reese. The man had always hesitated around eating with Cameron near him, but she did study him from afar. Right now, John was the spitting image of Derek hunched over the table shoving as much in his mouth as possible with every movement of his fork.

Letting out a loud belch, John tossed the now empty packet of food into the trash and looked back to her, "So, can we get going now? Or are you gonna make me brush my teeth too?"

Suppressing the urge she felt to reach out and slap/hug him to death, Cameron raised an eyebrow at him. "I mean are you ready to go Cam?" His eyes looked over her nervously, not knowing if she was confused or merely dicking with him.

"Oh...Thank you for explaining," her head turned and looked out towards the Humvee as she rose from the table. "If we leave now we should still be on schedule."

"Well alright then!" John said charismatically. He practically ran over to the Humvee and deposited himself in the passengers seat. A few steps behind him, Cam opened the drivers side door and sat herself behind the wheel. Turning in her seat to wrestle something from the backseat, John couldn't help but let his eyes wonder at the girl sitting across from him. Finally finding what she was searching for, she placed the object in her lap. Her hand reached up to the steering wheel as the object slid down off her leg and nestled itself between her thighs.

"John?" His eyes again snapped from a daydream to the woman before him. She was eying him curiously, but still kept her devious smirk visible for him to see.

"Yea!" he said a little too loudly, "Wha...what's up?" _I'm a dead man, I'm a dead man, I am so dead right now._

Her hand cranked the motor and then flew down between her legs. John quietly began reciting the national anthem to himself before he saw a package being pulled up from under her left leg. His heart was beating twice its normal rate as he desperately tried to remember the next verse of the song in his head. The contents in the package rattled slightly as she handed it over to him, "Here's your toothbrush."

With a shit-eating grin she turned her attention to the world ahead of them as the blast door opened all the way. Pressing her foot on the accelerator they began their trek towards the former American border while John continued to stare at his companion, torn between being in awe of her or dumbstruck that she'd made a good joke.

* * *

**50 miles Northwest of Calgary, Canada**

**April 22, 2011**

**10:01AM**

* * *

John had a vivid picture in his mind of what the future looked like. He had spent two years of his life scouring the remains of Los Angeles when looking for Cameron's chip and John Henry's body. What lay before him as the vehicle reached the base of the hill though still took his breath away. A few hundred feet below them on the cliff side, and a few miles South of their position was the remains of the town. The town, they had driven through to get here

Cameron eyed John sadly as when reaching for his hand, she frowned as her skin made contact with his. She didn't like him being exposed to the elements like this. Before their arrival yesterday he had flat out refused to don the radiation suit that she had stolen for him. Knowing that he would never go along with the getup she still wanted to protect him. That was her desire after all.

"How much longer until we're at the border?" John's eyes never left the ruined city down below. Hoping that they were as far away from the carnage ASAP.

After checking her HUD trajectory again she gave him her first actual estimation, "Around three hours, John." In this world she honestly couldn't say how long it was going to take them to travel anywhere. Sure, Canada wasn't nearly as destroyed as the more populated nations of the world, but they still had to make it to the border and meet John Henry.

"Mind pulling over for a moment? I'll be right back." John shifted his weight slightly in his seat. To Cameron he seemed uncomfortable with the surroundings of the destroyed landscape. She didn't like seeing him in any kind of discomfort at all.

Not knowing what the sudden need for him to walk about was she returned her attention to John, "John we don't need to stay here. You don't have to force yourself to..."

"Just pull over," he said with a finality to his tone. Remembering that his companion might interpret his 'need' to pull over the wrong way he felt the need to add, "Please," to the end of his sentence.

Following his command she pulled the Humvee to the side of the path, gradually coming to a full stop. He gave her hand a small squeeze before opening the door and getting out. Seeing that she was about to get out and follow him he ducked his head back in to tell her, "It's okay Cam. I need a personal moment." Giving her a grin he jogged a few steps behind the large vehicle to make sure that Cameron couldn't see him in the rear view mirrors at all.

Confident that he was in fact alone and away from prying eyes, he unzipped his pants and began to relieve himself. The sound of crunching and melting snow filled his ears as he tilted his head back and moaned in delight. He'd forgotten during his early rise that he needed to 'go', having been distracted partially by Cameron and her chipper mood.

"John," her voice behind him made the future leader of mankind jump in his own skin. Hurriedly zipping himself up, he turned to face her, "Jesus! I thought I told you to stay in the truck."

She didn't acknowledge his words, only grabbing him by the collar of his jacket and throwing him into the treeline on the other side of the road. "If you want to live be quiet!" Not giving him a moment to reply she kicked the vehicle off of the road and into the trees a few yards ahead of him.

Wincing and ducking as the large vehicle made contact with a rather large tree he felt compelled to yell at her for being ridiculous before she came sprinting over to him. She vaulted from the middle of the road and flew through the air, landing beside him in a white cloud of snow. "Sorry for this. You'll thank me later." Cameron began piling snow on top of him, practically covering every inch of his body.

"Cam, what the hell?" He tried to say before she'd completely buried him. His vision of her completely disappeared after a few moments of her shoveling. _Great, I'm stuck in a hole. Face down in snow._

After she was certain that there was no proof of the man buried in the snow next to her, Cameron began digging herself a hole next to John. Knowing it would fit her dimensions, she laid down in the freshly dug foxhole and raked the snow down on top of herself. Having completely shoveled herself with snow, she dug through to her left with her hand. It only took a moment or so before she reached John's mass, noting that he had already began shivering from the cold.

"Cam, what the fuck is going on?" his muffled yell came through the snow to her ears.

Paying attention to her current priority she kept digging with her hand, "Please lift your chest a little." John obliged to her command and she placed her hand under his torso. Raising her internal temperature to its highest setting, 105 degrees Fahrenheit, she made contact with his heart. The snow below her began melting but it was a small price to pay to keep John from freezing.

Just before he was about to yell at her again, he heard the reason for her rash actions. Up above them he heard the whirring noise of an HK drone. It wasn't a fully fledged aerial HK like he had encountered during his tour of duty with the 132nd but it was definitely larger then the unit that had attacked ZeiraCorp. Instantly forgiving her for having 'buried' him alive, he shut up and tried to keep from moving too much.

The roar of the motors above them came and went as the HK passed over them. Surveying the remains of the town down below it released a rocket into a relatively untouched building before swirling around to inspect the road. Its HUD followed the tire marks in the white powder that had nearly filled with the falling snow in the air, finally coming to a rest on the Humvee. Even though the vehicle was crashed and very likely to not be of use to anyone it still fired off a secondary missile at the still warm engine compartment.

Metal screamed and ripped as the small munitions missile came into contact with the Humvee. Cameron noticed John's body tense up from the blast not even 10 yards from them. She shifted in the snow onto her left shoulder and sent her other hand through the wall of powder to shield John's mouth. She felt him nod as her hand made contact with his face, he understood exactly what needed to be done for them to survive.

Lingering for a few more moments, the HK turned on a dime in midair and proceeded to the nearest town approximately thirty-five kilometers south southeast of its' present location. Having listened with her audio receptors turned up to 100% until she could no longer hear the HK, Cameron grabbed Johns jacket and pulled him close to her. Together they both stood up and made their way onto the road.

Glancing over at the destroyed Humvee John muttered, "Shit," through his chattering teeth. All of their supplies were toast, as well as the MRE's they were to deliver to the resistance command once they'd made it across the border. The next thing he knew Cameron had stepped in front of him and was tightly hugging the life out of him.

"Ugh...Cam...can't...can't breathe," he tried to say. The death grip of the girls arms nearly choking his lungs of air. She released her grip somewhat but still continued their embrace. Her radiating heat doing its best against the freezing temperatures of the Canadian hillside. Soon he didn't feel cold at all next to the furnace that was Cameron. "Well, looks like we're walking from here," he joked.

"We'll need a new vehicle, before noon. The weather will be well below freezing before nightfall," she stated. Removing her grip on his torso she looked up at him before taking his hand and leading him to the Humvee. Ripping the door off its hinges she quickly located the remains of their surviving supplies. After handing him the cleaned M16 rifle and a couple of 9mm's, she quickly grabbed a duffel bag full of extra ammo before eying a thermal blanket in the very back of the vehicle. She ignored the indicators of fire near her as her hand reached for the blanket. It was an absolute requirement for John's survival now.

"Cameron!," John yelled and grabbed her by the seat of the pair of jeans she had on. He yanked her back out of the vehicle just as she had reached the blanket. "Don't be stupid alright, its just blanket. Besides," they both looked down at her now burnt jeans leg and singed skin, "You can't afford to damage yourself now, we need you to blend in, not be Superwoman"

Her face turned back towards him, thinking very carefully over what he said, "Understood John." The man before her nodded and smiled before walking away from the wrecked vehicle. She took two steps towards him before turning back to the Humvee. Her hands punched through the rear metal plates and bent it open so she could access the blanket easily.

Retrieving it from inside, she strolled up to John with a smirk on her face, "What? Nobody was around to see." Unfolding the blanket, she wrapped it tenderly around him and took the guns from his hands. "You need this more then I do."

Pulling the warm piece of cloth around him, he smiled at her before turning to face to road again, "Shall we get started then Kara?"

Her smile disappeared and was replaced by a look of utter confusion, "Kara?"

"Superwoman...from the comic books? Her name was Kara..." he laughed as they began walking down the hillside.

Taking up pace beside John she decide to continue his charade, "So my name is to be Kara now?" Trying to keep all of the signs of her devious playful mood away from John for the time being, she looked back at him again.

John sighed and opened the blanket up, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her in close to him, "Women..."

* * *

_* Baum, L. Frank. 5-17-1900. George M. Hill Company Publishing. "The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz"_

I intend this to be a weekly or daily entry into John's battle with Skynet. I have no set date when it will end or not, it will simply end when I run out of ideas and inspiration to keep writing.

Reviews and comments are welcome :)

To Be Continued...

*This story has been updated: 6-7-2012*


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: On The Run**

* * *

_ The war has begun._

_ Skynet made the first move across the chessboard._

_ Though I don't believe that to be a true analogy. Chess pawns aren't capable of annihilating over half of the opposing pieces in the first move of the game._

_ There lay another problem with Chess, it's a game. You can get up and walk away from a game, not so in war._

_ In war there is only loss and victory. _

_ And the incredible journey it takes to get there..._

* * *

**Calgary, Canada**

**April 22, 2011**

**12:22 AM**

* * *

"Cam, you can set me down now," John said sarcastically while rolling his eyes. Even though he knew the odds of finding a person alive in the carnage of Calgary were slim, he didn't want to be seen being carried around by a 100 pound girl. Especially a girl that was supposed to be blending in as a human, and not being his guardian angel. Still he couldn't believe she had ran fifty miles carrying him in under three hours.

She rolled her eyes back at John before setting him down. Studying the man before her, she could have swore he looked around sheepishly to see if anyone had seen him 'regain his cool'.

"We should find a vehicle soon. John," she turned back to him with her 'robot' face. John thought it was hilarious every time Cameron tried to be serious that she always defaulted to that face, "You have to stay here. Anything closer then 10 miles to the blast radius will result in radiation poisoning and death."

Taking his eyes off of Cameron he looked over her shoulder and remembered the bomb that fell no longer then a day ago. He silently nodded in understanding before wrapping himself tighter in the thermal blanket. It had warmed up to nearly zero degrees Celsius but even that was cold to the California native.

"Cam two eyes are better then one when looking for a vehicle in a demolished city ya know?" He gaffed while shivering from the cold. The temperature outside trying to find every available way to gnaw him to the bone.

"True, but residual radiation prevents me from letting you into the city. We need to find you a shelter. Black rain is already depositing in the surrounding area, any contact can prove fatal," Cam finished off her speech while scanning the sky above with her many forms of optical gaze. "And you will stay inside it when its made. The wind will provide a little help with the fallout but it is still too much of a risk for you to wonder off," returning her gaze from the skies above to glare at him in a death-like fashion. She'd meant every word that just came from her mouth, and he knew it immediately.

He held up his arms in the air as if surrendering to her whim, "Okay, okay. I get it. No exploring the irradiated city and turning into the Hulk in the process. I got it Cam," the look of amusement was soon wiped off his face as she continued to glare at him. He knew that she was right and he should stay indoors as much as possible. It wouldn't do much to help humanity if he died from radiation sickness within the first year of the war.

They began looking around. Or rather Cameron began methodically scanning the environment, John watched her, curious as to what she was planning to do. It wasn't exactly like they were carrying a tent around somewhere.

She took her gaze from one edge of her field of view to another, looking for anything in the vicinity that would meet her base requirements for a shelter. After a few moments she looked down at the bridge they were standing on, her head tilted in its usual strange manner as she considered using it.

Calculating the approximate thickness needed to shield John from the dangers of the black rain her HUD flashed the statistics:

Steel: 23 Cm

Concrete: 68 Cm

Rock: 110 Cm

Designating the first two categories would pertain to the bridge, she ignored the third statistic. Cameron casually walked over to the side of the bridge and glanced down at the thickness of its components, she began her calculations. Ignoring the asphalts standard 5.04 Cm thickness her scan moved to the concrete and steel structure. Finding them both to have a combined thickness of 1.2192 meters. It wasn't much but it would be enough as a temporary shelter for John.

"This will do," she looked back at John and motioned for him to follow her. As they approached the end of the bridge she leaped over the side onto the snow-covered grass below. Holding out her arms for him she told him to jump.

"You're kidding right? Its like a 2 foot drop Cam, watch out," he laughed as he vaulted over the guard rail of the bridge. Landing next to her he wrapped himself in the blanket again before smirking at her, "Your not Superwoman remember?"

"Right," she said flatly. As they neared the chain link fence that prevented access to the underside of the bridge, she merely ripped a hole in it with her hands. Turning back to him she flashed him a devious grin, "Would you prefer me to let you climb over the fence or go through it?"

"Har, har. Very funny," he rolled his eyes at her, slightly wincing at the fact that she could keep up with his sense of humor now. John crawled through the hole in the chain link and made his way up to the peak of the concrete outcrop under the bridge. He was about to sprawl down on the cold stone before he turned back to Cameron, "Hey can you do me a favor?"

She eyed him steadily, "I can do that." Part of her logic core truly curious as to what he wanted at a time like this.

"Well," he sighed as he brought his hand up to rub the back of his head, "I'd love you so much right now if you could use some of that body heat to warm up the concrete so it doesn't freeze my ass."

Picking up on the amount of teasing and sarcasm in his tone she wasted no time in determining an appropriate response. She walked right up to him until her face was a mere inch from his, "I could, but you are perfectly capable of doing that yourself." With a sly grin she turned around and walked back over to the partially destroyed fence, "You possess body heat as well, you know." And with that she ducked through the hole and was gone in a few seconds.

A few minutes had passed by before he even attempted sitting down on the cold stone. As he did, it instantly began chilling his very bones. Immediately standing back up he cursed at himself for being so stupid. He paced back and forth for a few moments before taking off towards the hole in the fence, "Screw it."

It wouldn't be long before John would need to be warmed by her excess body heat. Cameron knew this and was determined to find the closest vehicle she could to get them both out of there. Still the parameters of her search hindered her ability somewhat. Normally finding a vehicle in a population of one-million-two-hundred-thousand would be no problem. Finding a vehicle capable of functioning after a small yield nuclear explosion while maintaining a safe distance from the city though was proving to be a problem in and of itself.

Anything within the three miles of the initial blast would be totally vaporized, nothing existed there. The five-hundred miles per hour winds had ravished anything within the next dozen miles of ground zero. The winds, while destructive, didn't destroy everything. There were a few buildings on the outer rim of the city that remained relatively intact. If the buildings were partially intact that would only mean that Skynet designated a low yield nuclear device and it had detonated in air, not on the ground. The collateral damage to the city structures wouldn't be as devastating to the environment as a large yield explosive with a ground detonation, such as the ones used in large cities like Hong Kong, London, or Los Angeles.

This gave her 'hope' that finding a vehicle in the wind swept debris field would prove fruitful. Her sensors tried hard to monitor the wind direction, making sure she stayed upwind at all times. Contact with radiation from the fallout wouldn't damage her at all, but the residual effects of it when she came into contact with John would kill him.

After Judgment Day any satellites would be directly under Skynets control, which meant her GPS systems were practically useless. Unable to use them any longer she had to keep a visual memory bank of her walk while searching. So far she had walked only a short distance southeast of the position where she left John on the bridge. Making sure to stay on the same road the bridge she had originated on, she tried to keep the processing power of the visual memory bank to a minimum.

On her search she passed many cars and vans on the road most were wrecked beyond repair though. The initial blast from the northwest had created a wind so powerful that it either pinned many cars to the ground or threw them on top of each other like children's play toys. Obviously the thrown cars were of no use, and the pinned cars were either buried under rubble or other cars that had became airborne.

A few meters further down the road was an intersection with the options of continuing east southeast, turning to go north northwest, or turn and go west southwest. She glanced around while trying to decide where to go next. Turning to the collapsed street sign ahead of her she scanned it for reference to the visual database: _Mission Rd SW / McLeod RD SW. Proceeding South __Southeast onto McLeod. _There was one reason she had chosen to travel south, and one reason only. She had spotted a fast food eatery, a Tim Hortons, approximately one block down the road. Knowing of the human appetite for anything remotely sugary and unhealthy, there were bound to be cars capable of transportation there.

The building was structurally sound, the engineers should be congratulated that the building survived a nuclear detonation. Windows had been blown out and everything not bolted to the floor had been upturned in the restaurant, but the building remained standing. It was deathly quite as Cameron entered the parking lot, finding a few cars and trucks parked along the south side of the building. Smiling to herself, she set off towards them to see which one would still crank.

Her first choice had been a 'no-go' as John would say. It barely had enough room for John to stretch out, let alone sit down in a comfortable position. The fourth vehicle she came to though was a near perfect match to the Dodge Ram pickup that John's uncle, Derek Reese, had driven during his stay with them. It had plenty of room inside, and was capable of hauling supplies if they were to discover any. Not wanting to force her way into the vehicle by breaking the glass, she carefully exerted enough pressure on the door lock to make it open. Breaking out the ignition switch, she forced the truck to start and pulled out of the lot to head back to John.

Cameron brought the vehicle to a stop just before the opening of the bridge. Climbing down from the cab, she made her way to the hole in the chain link fence to let John know she'd arrived. Her thoughts of leaving were soon dashed when she rounded the corner and saw John nowhere in site. Eyes scanning in every mode she possessed, she could find no trace of him. Her only clue as to where he was were the footprints under the bridge that hadn't been filled with fresh snow.

Without her control her left hand began clasping itself again. Not even paying attention to it she boosted every function in her scanning procedures to 100% efficiency before noticing a slight glitch in her neck servo's. Slowly but surely they were becoming more and more frequent, her head snapping in different directions a quarter inch at a time. Her HUD began filling with static as the symbols and data began warping themselves into impossible shapes. Finally as the glitch that shook her body reached critical mass she dropped to her knees and collapsed face down into the snow.

* * *

Nearly one block southwest of Cameron was John. Having grown bored of doing nothing but freezing his ass off, he had decided to search for supplies while his friend looked for a vehicle. Trying to stay away from the blast radius like she told him, he made his way across a small public park, or what remained of the park.

His time spent in the alternate future time line had prepared him of what would most likely be seen after the bombs fell. The land in front of his eyes though told a different story. There wasn't years of decay and neglect all around, everything hadn't been totally destroyed by Skynet yet. It still had that 'human' touch to it, even though it quite literally looked as if a bomb had went off everywhere around him. You could still tell that people once gathered here, memories had been made, and lives had been lived.

Stopping for a moment to took everything in, it all became a little overwhelming to see a city lay in ruins. Knowing that people had inhabited it while the destruction took place. The twisted remains of the playground to his right, toppled buildings around the parks exterior, he could almost hear the people going about their day as if nothing had ever happened. But something had happened, and now probably over a million people had met their fate never again to enjoy the comforting surroundings of their city.

Hearing a car off in the distance and knew it was probably Cameron, he snapped out of his nostalgia and continued across the park. Clearing the debris on the far side of the singed grass, he stepped out onto the relatively empty street. A petrol station across the way looked like an optimal place to find food and water. Shaking off the instinct to look before crossing the street, he jogged towards to partially destroyed building.

Surprisingly the building was only about halfway demolished. And the part of the building that was demolished seemed to be the cashier end of the store, which really wasn't the end John needed to raid. Crawling in through one of the windows and coming to a halt inside the building he immediately vomited the contents of his breakfast onto the floor beside him at the sight in front of him.

He turned and faced the street again to take his mind off of the bodies inside the store. Carefully walking backwards he kept his eyes on the streets until his back touched the drink counter. Turning around with his eyes closed he clutched the handle to the door with his sweaty palms. _Get a grip John, _He kept telling himself repeatedly. Reopening his eyes to see the rows of soft drinks in front of him he opened the door to grab a few bottled waters, which he placed in his deep pants pockets. Nearly forgetting to close his eyes again, he turned around and headed for the window to get the hell out of there.

The heat and wind had done more then destroy buildings and the landscape, he'd known that. Yet in the future he visited, the skulls and bones were washed clean. He'd never before seen the horror of coming face to face with a half melted human corpse before. The boils on the 'skin' that had blistered up, nerves and muscle tissue hung out of large pockets of the body, with bones sticking through the gruesome remains in random points.

Pools of dried blood and skin glued the bodies to the floor. They would remain there until time erased all traces of the organic material, leaving only a gleaming skull to mark the final resting place of the people that fell there. He didn't waste time debating on how there were even people that didn't totally disintegrate in the explosion, he just knew that they had been here during the blast. People had seen the hellfire coming towards them, not knowing what they'd done to deserve such a fate. No, John definitely had no intention of staying in there longer then he needed to.

_Just how many more places are there like this? How many people truly died from the fireflies that could be seen from space? _It'd been nearly 15 hours after the blasts had began, surely nearly any survivors were on their way to safe areas of the globe. Cameron had relayed John Henry's message to him, he knew the AI had instructed people to flee the nuclear areas. He just hoped people had heeded his warnings.

As he neared the camp John could see the truck parked in the middle of the road, which was still running. _Oh I am so boned,_ his brain reminded him while he double timed it to the vehicle. Once at the passenger door though, he could see nobody inside. He hopped down from the truck and took a few glances off to the bridge, she was nowhere to be found.

Running wide open, he jumped over the guard rail and made his way down to the 'shelter' Cameron had told him to not leave. And there she was, face down in the snow, waiting for him. "What the hell?" muttering to himself, he hurried over to her. Quickly grabbing her shoulder, John rolled the girl over onto her side and looked at her hopelessly, "Cameron?" Waiting a few moments only to hear nothing he shook her should again, "Cameron!"

"Aw shit," he punched the ground near her face, "_Stay in place John._ No, I had to go and look for shit." After continuing to beat himself up over his actions for the next few minutes John couldn't help but notice the cold beginning to get to him again. "Aw hell," he stuttered. Slinging her left arm around his shoulder as he picked up her slightly heavy frame. Slowly but surely he began making his way back to the truck. _Next time she tells you to not do something John, just fucking listen to her._

It wasn't an easy feat to lift her into the truck, but he'd managed to do it. Running around to the drivers side, he climbed up and jacked the heater on high. Cameron still hadn't rebooted, or shown any signs of life what so ever, and he was running out of ideas to get her to 'wake up'. Knowing of her still developing emotions and that they practically took over her body when she experienced them, sometimes they took a little while for her to process. They had never completely shut her down before.

Her emotions were always absolute. When she was happy, the girl in front of him was beaming with joy in every single moment of the experience. Though he never saw her be afraid, he'd seen her sense sadness before. The time she understood what John had actually went through in the future to retrieve her chip had left her in a depressive mood for days on end.

_Is it possible that despair and fear caused this?_ "Cam," he grabbed her left hand and gave it a tight squeeze. It would leave any other person wincing in pain at the pressure he asserted but Cam was different, she was special, "CAM!" It wasn't that he meant to yell, never before had he raised his voice to her even when seething in anger.

She still didn't respond to anything he was doing. 120 seconds came and went, and she still remained lifeless. _Well shit John, you killed her..._

He eased back down into his seat at that realization of that thought, he'd killed his best friend for being stupid. She'd told him they would gather supplies when she returned, but no he had to be human and do it on his own. Pushing the thoughts from his mind he turned back to her to see the eyes dancing beneath her eyelids, a faint blue tint visible from under them.

"Cam?" he asked quietly. He'd never seen this before, the blue light sure, but not...this. Her optical sensors only showed when she forced them to or when she experienced an overload of data. Halfway hovering above her, he grabbed her hand again and gave it a tight squeeze. After a few moments she squeezed back but very faintly. Deciding that it was best to remove his hand before she really 'squeezed' in response, he dislodged it from her grasp.

As soon as he did she went crazy. John had never seen Cameron desperately try and do anything, even when she was being emotional. The sight before him though let him know that something was definitely 'off' about her at the moment. Her hands were grasping in random places in the air trying to find him.

Cautiously he outstretched his hand to her and she grabbed it as soon as his skin made contact with her hand. She didn't do anything beyond that, merely held his hand as tightly as she could without ripping it off.

Noticing that her eyes were glowing brighter and still shifting all over the place he reached up and cupped her cheek with his free hand. As if his touch were helping her in a weird sort of way, she leaned her head into his caress. Her grip on his hand loosened a little enough for him to catch his breath. He silently mouthed an 'Ow' as he saw the look on her face. Up until now she'd had a scowl adorning her face, but now that expression had been replaced with serenity.

While trying to wake her again he spoke softly this time, "Cameron?" Visually seeing her respond but still not opening her eyes he gave her another gentle nudge while saying her name. Her head leaned towards his voice, almost as if she were blind and using his speech to gain a sense of direction. "Cam," he repeated.

Her voice finally gave proof to him that she was 'alive', "John." It hit his ears as a whisper, though it seemed to be much softer then that. _Just what is going on with her?_

"If you can understand me, squeeze my hand," looking down at their entwined hands waiting for the inevitable death grip, he said a silent prayer for his future broken hand. What he received though was a delicate flex of her grip.

"You were gone, I didn't know what to do," she said. Her eyes remained closed but they had stopped roaming all over the place. The blue tint below them slowly beginning to fade from its bright vibrancy. They were shining so bright that he could make out the outline of her iris through her eyelids.

As he looked back up to her face, her eyes finally opened slowly. Smiling down at her, he breathed a slow sigh of relief, "I thought I'd lost you for a minute there."

She kept the same peaceful emotion on her face and replied, "So did I." Her eyes locked with his as the blue aura behind them faded to nothing.

"Yea," he tried to brush off his little adventure, "sorry about that." Silently swearing to himself that he never intended to defy her again if he could help it.

Her eyes remained focused on him, "Did you find the truck?"

John couldn't stifle his laugh any longer, "Yea Cam. We're in the truck." His arm waved around in the open air over shoulder.

For the first time since they'd opened she took her eyes off John and followed the movement of his arm. She began to study her surroundings, then muttered, "Oh," as she realized he was telling the truth. "We should get going," she said, checking her internal clock, "We are behind schedule."

"Fuck the schedule Cam. Are you okay? And don't lie to me," he removed his hand from her cheek only to brush back a clump of hair covering the left side of her face. Tenderly placing it behind her ear.

"I honestly don't know," her gaze refocused on John. He could tell from her eyes that she was telling the truth, though he knew she would insist on moving away from the city as soon as possible. He gave her hand a final squeeze before climbing back in to the drivers seat. Setting the vehicle into drive, he began their journey across the bridge. The once majestic city fading into their rear view mirror.

Only after they had cleared the bridge and continued down the road did she sit up in the seat and look out of her window. "Is that whats its like?" Her eyes darted across the remaining tree's not singed by the blast of the detonation. All of them blown over by the force of the blast wave.

His attention was mostly focused on the drive. As she spoke her voice snapped him out of his daze. He turned toward her quizzically, "Hmm?"

"When I saw you were gone, I didn't know what to do. My first conscious act was devising a strategy on carrying out my mission to find you, after I saw that you weren't where I had left you." She brought her hand up in front of her face and studied its every movement as if viewing it for the first time. After a few seconds she lowered her hand and turned towards him.

"Possible courses of action piled on top of each other until I couldn't determine what to do. After that," her voice trailed off as she tried to remember what had happened to her, "I was in the truck hearing your voice, but I couldn't respond. It took a few minutes but I was able to form a response to your repetitions of my name." She stopped again to try and decipher what to say next, "Is that what fear feels like?"

"Certainly sounds like it Cam," he kept driving down the road but held his hand out to her. She studied it for a moment before reaching out her own hand and entwining it with his. Forcing her system to ignore the various feeds of data presented to her at their touch, she leaned back into her seat and frowned. "I don't ever want to feel that again," her eyes flashed back to John sadly.

"Nobody ever wants to feel fear, but when it happens," he gave her hand a slight squeeze and tried to use a few comforting words, "we all react differently. Some of us retreat in fright while others use the fear to focus their attention and succeed in their missions." _Missions? WTF John! Just because she's a machine doesn't mean you have to relate everything back to data and mission parameters._

"How do you deal with it?" He froze for a second not really knowing how to answer the question at all. Like he'd already told her, everyone experiences it differently. Though now she was asking for his specific way of dealing with fear.

"I...uh..." fumbling over his own tongue he tried in vain to come up with an explanation for her. "There was a time in the first safe house back in 2007 when I was afraid. At first I froze up and just...uh..." his voice failed him as he tried to keep talking. The hand he had placed on the steering wheel tightened its grip and his mouth ran dry, "I was there not knowing what to do, but once the feeling came over me to a certain extent I knew it was either him or me. So I focused my mind, ignored the feeling of being scared, and acted how I needed to act."

"The day Sarkissian invaded the house? The day you killed him?" As she spoke she could sense his heartbeat elevate, skin perspiration began, and the steering wheel began protesting against his grip. She knew these responses, they were forms of anger.

"Yea," was all he could muster for her, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. He didn't like to think about that day much. It had started off so well but turned into a giant clusterfuck so quickly even he hardly believed it. During the past few years he had done his best to push it as far from his mind as possible.

"John?" her voice snapping him out of his distant gaze of the vacant road, "Yea?" He turned to address her. The frown from before, having been replaced with a slight smile, "You missed the turn a half a kilometer ago."

Snorting at his mistake, he slowed the truck down enough to execute a u-turn and made their way back to the turnoff. "It shouldn't be long now," she said, leaning over to check the fuel gauge. "We will need to gas up in another 20 kilometers or so. After that it should be a short trip to the border for another 32 kilometers."

"_So_ precise," he teased while giving her hand another playful squeeze.

"Focusing my attention lessens the effect that fear has over my systems," she stated before beginning to look at the landscape on her side of the road.

Cam was right, nearly to the exact moment that they would need to stop for gas. They had double checked the back of the truck for containers for extra fuel but found none. Though there were a few empty 2 liter bottles in the bed of the truck, they would have to do as gas containers for the time being. As they left the truck John quickly asked his companion, "Will there be any terminators patrolling around here? Lethbridge doesn't look like it was hit by a blast."

"No, towns like with a low population such as Lethbridge will be spared the initial onslaught of nuclear annihilation. The first Terminators will begin their missions on August 7th, 2011. Their first missions will be to infiltrate towns and settlements and kill the surviving humans," Cameron fired off a little too flatly for John's taste.

"What about the HK from before? Won't it be flying around looking for people to kill?" He was struggling to keep up with her pace. The thermal blanket was preventing his legs from taking the long strides he was normally used to.

"Yes," she said. Noting his increase in breathing at the exertion of the cardio workout, she slowed her pace to accommodate him, "They will be a problem. Initially their mission will pertain to following up on all nuclear blasts. After that they will expand their searches and carry out the secondary missions of eliminating survivors in small towns and safe havens."

Thankful that she finished her explanation there, he simply nodded and kept on walking. The wind began biting into his skin as he hugged his own chest. Even with a thick jacket, 2 shirts, military pants, and boots on; John was still freezing. Seeing him shivering alongside her she pulled him in closer and raised her body temp. Letting the warmth radiate from her to him, they continued their trek to the town one kilometer ahead of them.

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Unexpected Company**

* * *

**Lethbridge, Canada**

**August 22nd, 2011**

**3:46PM**

* * *

John was freezing, literally on the verge of hypothermia. Cameron had pushed her internal temperature to the max in order to warm him but it could only do so much. His external skin temp remained at a cool 64 degree's while internally he had chilled down to 83. Briefly considering telling John that if his body reached an internal temperature of 75 or lower that he would begin to slip into a coma, she decided against it. Knowing that no good would come of it, other then elevating his stress, she kept on walking beside him.

"John," she pulled him closer to her as a bit of breeze picked up, "tell me again about meeting your father in the future." John had told her of small moments in time when he had traveled into the future, but not in great detail. Most of his descriptions had focused on the war and battle with Skynet. Out of respect for his grief, she hadn't asked him about his relationships with the people in the alternate future time line. Now though, she needed to keep him talking for as long as possible so that he would stay awake.

It was a struggle for him to speak through his short breathes of air but he answered her, "He...uh...wasn't what I had been expecting. Mom always told me...s...stories of him when I was little. B..b...but seeing him in the flesh was something else. I had him pictured...as...some sorta...super soldier. Instead...he just...reminded me of...me." As the breeze hit him he froze in his tracks for a moment while the air blew past him.

His eyes clamped shut for a moment then opened up as a light cut through the haze of snow. "Hey," he pointed up at the light, "what is that?"

Her head snapped in the direction he pointed in. Unable to see anything with her color field of view she overlaid the thermal sensors on top of it and looked again. The enhanced view showed her that the light John pointed to was emanating from a truck stop, a fire was burning outside. Relaying this information to John, he turned to her and smiled through chattering teeth, "Well, lets boogie then!"

Partially surprised that John was capable of running in his condition, she took off after him as he sprinted the 53.61 yards to the gas station. Not wanting to wound his pride by running faster then him, she adjusted her pace to have her arrive just after he did. As soon as he came within distance of the fire he huddled as close as possible to it, soaking in its radiant warmth.

"Kid! Hey kid! Get the hell in here!" came a voice to his left. As Cameron arrived just beside him she turned her head, "There are two people in the store."

Nodding to his friend, he grabbed the scorching hot hand of hers and ran towards the mans voice. The air stung his face and burned his lungs as they approached the doorway. A slightly overweight man stood holding a door open for them, "Come on! Hurry the hell up, I'm letting all the warmth out!"

As soon as they stepped inside the man hurriedly shut the door and locked it, throwing John into survival mode. "Not expecting any company I take it." His eyes started darting around looking for possible exit points and weapons to use in case he needed them. They didn't find much though, unless he intended to beat the men to death with a frozen candy bar.

"Uh kid? Mind telling us what you two were doing outside in this weather?" The larger man that had held the door open for them moved over to the counter. Behind the register was another slightly taller man who was significantly thinner. Both men shared similar traits and facial features leading John to believe they were related.

The men both had a round face with significant balding going on. The tall man had nearly no hair at all, while the larger male still had the remnants of brownish gray hair wrapping around his skull. Their style of clothing remained similar; simple shirts with thick denim pants and boots.

John didn't have time to answer before Cameron stuttered, "We...were...were on our way from...Cuh...Calgory...wha...on our way to visit...Aunt Sarah when our truck...ra...ran out of petrol. Do...do you have any to spare?" This kind of behavior struck John as _extremely_ odd and he turned to see what the hell was her problem. What he saw was Cameron, curled over herself shaking uncontrollably, mimicking John's body language.

Her body was constantly shivering from weather that obviously couldn't be making her 'cold'. Though he knew that she could feel things, and register them on an emotional level, this was nothing near what she'd ever experienced. She'd told him of the time that Kaliba employees had attempted to breach her chip by using Derek as bait. Just before freeing him, she was dosed with cold water and electrocuted. Cam had told him she was 'surprised' and 'shocked' at the cold sensation that had ran over her body before she was forced into a reboot.

He chuckled to himself, she really was a mystery to him; a beautiful, strange, occasionally trigger happy, blob of mystery. The men across the aisle from them broke down their guard instantly at the shivering girl before them. "Aw hell yea. We can spare a gallon or two."

The large man turned to the other and repeated himself, "Sure we can spare a gallon to help out you two, right Larry?" Larry smiled warmly in Cameron's direction and ducked down beneath the counter. Half expecting him to raise a shotgun on them and open fire, John was quite relieved when the man stood back up with a five gallon plastic gas tank in his hands, "This should get you guys to where you need to go."

"Whole damn town's electricity is shot, nobody knows why. We had to manually pump about fifty of these little containers worth of fuel out for people in case they wanted to buy some today. Can't much do any pumping until the power's back on." The larger man was motioning around the store at the lights, "Got ourselves a generator for the store, but the pumps run on city hydro."

John and Cameron nodded in unison and stepped forward to take the free gas. "Say, uh. You kids hungry?" The men looked at each other then back to the two teens in front of them, "We got plenty of stuff to heat up in the microwave if ya are." Larry motioned to the guy standing in front of the counter, his brother William, and told him to fetch them something to eat.

William returned a minute later with two small individual servings of Chef-boyardee in his hands, "You guys like spaghetti and meatballs?" Cameron frowned at the suggestion of her eating the meal while John laughed. This was the second time today he was eating that, and hopefully this time his body would decide to keep it down.

Cameron continued her frown at the small red container in the mans hand and spoke up for herself, "No thank you. I'm vegetarian. Do you have any tofu?" The two men reacted mildly put off by her statement. John turned to her in amazement, _This is it. She's finally snapped, I'm going to have to run to the United States with a killer terminator on my heels._

Larry spoke up from behind the counter, "Third aisle miss. Top shelf, near the back." Thanking the man for his directions she stumbled over to the aisle and began looking for her tofu. Still staring at her in disbelief, John didn't even hear William ask him if he wanted both containers of spaghetti or just one. Finally muttering a, "Yea. Sure, thanks," to the man while still staring at Cameron. Shrugging off the boy and girls strange attitude, William walked behind the counter and placed both containers in the microwave.

The brothers looked at the teens with curiosity, resigning themselves to the strange behavior as an attribute of walking through the snow storm outside. John had began to warm up inside the store and relaxed his body as he walked over to Cameron, who had finally found the tofu, and was deciding on which brand she would like.

"Cam, what? The hell? I know you can eat, why not just accept what he offered. It's not like you're going to need it anyway right?" His eyes studied her every move while she remained intent on finding the correct tofu she wanted.  
"That's not true," she simply whispered to him while her eyes still searched the shelves of the store. Hardly anything had the contents of what she required.

Taking a precautionary step back in case she was going to try and kill him, John's mind was doing cartwheels trying to figure out what she was doing. "Whats not true?"

"I do require food, albeit in small amounts. Otherwise my organic covering would decompose over time. I require a small intake of approximately two thousand calories every twenty three days, evenly distributed amongst the food groups to ensure the skin's appearance remains unchanged." She'd never told him this before, never even mentioned it. He'd seen her eat plenty of times; the chip on the first day he met her, the many times in the school cafeteria, stealing pancakes from Derek at the safe house. Though he had never asked her why she was eating, or even if she needed to. The information caught him off guard.

"Then why not take the damn stuff he offered to you?" He eyed her curiously.

"The nutritional value will not meet my needs and will be in excess of my fat intake. Currently I am in need of protein, which is readily available in forms of tofu," she replied again. Quickly adding on, "And I don't like the taste of processed foods. They taste funny."

That was the final straw. He didn't know if she was completely dicking around with him or if she was seriously saying that she 'disliked' doing something. "Are you saying you don't like how stuff tastes?" He followed her from the third aisle to the refrigerated drinks and meals section of the store.

"Correct," she picked up a veggie burger from the shelf after finally making her selection. "I don't like the taste of processed foods." She turned towards him and shot him a look as if he should already know this information.

"How in the hell did you manage to eat mom's pancakes for a year and a half then? They were one step above charcoal." He was still laughing internally at the fact that she was claiming to be a vegetarian.

"No one gave an indication they would like another meal cooked for them. I ate what was available," she tilted her head at him, continuing to give him the 'didn't you know this' face.

"Are you telling me...wait a minute," he tried to get his mind back on track to finish his statement but she walked past him and returned to the counter to thank William and Larry.

John still stood in the aisle, gobsmacked from Cameron's explanation, as his lunch rang out its completion from the microwave on the opposite side of the store. He made his way over to William, who handed him the two containers and a plastic spoon to eat with. William walked over to Cameron and eyed her curiously that she had already began eating her cold burger, "Don't you want that heated up miss?"

"Oh," she said shyly, looking down at the cold burger in her hands, "Yes please." Her smile seemed to erase all suspicion in the man as he chuckled to himself and took her burger to the microwave.

Looking up from his nearly finished first bowl of spaghetti, he suddenly asked, "Wait. Are you the peanut butter thief?" Cameron turned to him and resumed her 'don't you know this' expression. After a few seconds of silence she brought her hand up and brushed back a lock of hair that was in her face, "I don't know what you're talking about John."

Acting as if he'd just solved a great mystery of the universe, John continued staring at her, "You are aren't you? Your the one who kept polishing off the peanut butter that Derek and Mom always kept hidden in the kitchen."

She couldn't resist letting one corner of her mouth slide up in a smirk, "It is an excellent source or protein." In a very lady like gesture she smiled at him, crossing her legs as they continued sitting in their little corner of the store. Williams returned with her freshly warm veggie burger. She took it gladly and began eating next to John, both of them returning to silence now that William was within earshot.

The man turned and walked back over to his brother behind the counter. Both men stood in various positions with their arms folded across their chests. Every few seconds they would mumble or grunt to each other, making small gestures with their hands before crossing them over their chests again.

Cameron and John finished their meals and thanked the men for their generosity. Just as they were getting up to leave the store on their trek back to the truck Larry called to the from behind the counter, "Hey we got a truck out back, might be able to give you a lift instead of walking in this storm out there." John agreed that would probably be best and he walked towards the back door with Larry. Cameron excused herself to the restroom saying she had something stuck in her teeth. William remained behind as if Cameron needed a guard dog for the bathroom door.

Outside, John was a bit let down to see the truck Larry spoke of was a non-functional Ford Ranger from the late eighties. Larry mentioned that the spark plug wires might need a jolt or two from the cold. Just as he was lifting the hood everything went black as he slowly fell to the ground, Larry standing behind him with a tire iron. He left John there in the snow and walked back inside the store, locking the door as he made his way back to William and Cameron.

The bathroom door opened and out stepped Cam. William was standing near the door and prevented her from accessing the rear exit to leave with John. Her head tilted to the side for a short moment before she smiled and said, "Excuse me."

"Oh, I don't think we'll be excusing you anytime soon." With a wry smile he reached up and slide his hand down the side of Cameron's face. Her smile faded at his comment, "I have to go now."

"Whats the rush girl?" said Larry as he rounded the corner and entered the building again. She looked over at him and asked where John was. Her eyes looked past Larry to find John but they saw nothing. This man had done something to John, and she would find out why.

"John will be waiting for you outside in the truck little lady," Larry made his way behind the counter and pulled out a shotgun. Her attention snapped to the rear door and saw that it had been locked. "Now you're gonna be a good girl aren't you?" asked William.

She looked back at Larry and his shotgun progressing towards her and William. The man in front of her had his hands roaming over her as she said calmly, "You shouldn't do that. I hurt people."

Brushing off her comment, both men laughed. Williams hands continued their adventure over her torso before she reasserted, "Last warning. You shouldn't be doing that."

"Oh look Larry, there's a little fight in her," he smirked to his brother, "that's good. Good." His hand started hovering over a particular area of her chest as she looked back up at him. His smile widened as she stood there in front of him.

Nearly as fast as a human can blink their eye, her hand was clamped around his upper arm. The man cried out in pain as she tightened her grip. He started struggling to get free only to be firmly held in place by Cameron's death grip. Tired of her sudden outburst he swung his hand out and slapped her across the face, instantly regretting it as he did. His hand screamed out in pain as if he'd slapped a steel wall.

"I warned you," she smirked back up at him. Giving the slightest squeeze of her hand, Williams upper arm shattered under her grip. The bones audibly cracking over and over again as he dropped to his knees, a look of excruciating agony on his face. He wasn't able to form words as he opened his mouth, he merely gasped and made guttural noises.

She turned to Larry who had aimed the shotgun directly at her, "You should put that down, otherwise he might loose his arm." The man in front of her continued gasping in pain as she increased her grip again, almost tempting Larry to do something with the gun.

"Let him go now! Or I end you right here, right now," Larry screamed at her.

Repeating herself from earlier with William she turned back to the man in front of her, "I warned him." She reached down and placed her right hand on the man's shoulder. Exerting just enough pressure, she ripped his right arm completely out of its socket. The man doubled over in pain grabbing for his now free swinging arm.

Cameron released her grip on the man and turned back to Larry, "What am I going to do with you?" The man screamed for his brother, only to receive incoherent rants of pain in reply. The girl started advancing on him as he backed into the counter. "I'm not supposed to kill you, it would be counteracting in our fight. Still, I can't allow you to leave." Finally coming within arms reach of the now visibly shaking man, she repeated, "What am I going to do with you?"

"Go to hell bitch," he gripped the shotgun and began to press the trigger. Remembering John telling her to blend in and preserve herself as much as possible now, she swatted the barrel of the gun away with her hand. The blast rang out loudly inside the store, followed by an intense scream by William.

"You son of a bitch! You...shot me!" Glancing over her shoulder to check on Williams condition she saw that he wasn't lying. His brother had in fact shot him at a twenty foot distance in the ass with the gun.

She turned back to Larry, who was beginning to re-center the gun at Cameron's torso and fire again. Nearly as fast as she had grabbed Williams arm, she snatched the gun from his hand. Holding onto the end of the barrel she swung it around and slapped Larry in the face with the stock of the gun. The wood splintered and broke in two as the man's jaw was shattered.

He stood clutching his face while she kicked the front of his left kneecap, instantly breaking it. The man was reduced to a pile of rags in the floor as she bent the barrel of the gun and threw it down beside him, "I'll be taking an extra five gallons of gas."

Both men cried in agony and moaned as she picked up the two containers of fuel and walked towards the back door. After breaking the locking mechanism on the door she walked outside to find John bleeding in the snow. Setting the gas jugs down she bent over and checked his vitals. Everything seemed to be fine, he was only bleeding slightly from a small cut on his scalp.

He stirred at her touch and asked, "Cam? That you?"

She held her hand out to him and helped him stand, "Yes John. I'm here." As he stood she saw him begin to loose his balance and fall back down. Grabbing his shoulders to help him regain his balance, she handed him the fuel with her spare hand. "Don't try and walk, you have a concussion."

He grimaced at the stinging pain from the gash on the back of his head. John didn't even bother to protest as she picked him up and started running towards their truck. Her normal running speed was around 35mph unimpeded, though with John's extra weight she was still able to garner a 18mph speed. The wind stung his body as they plowed through the snow storm but he didn't complain. He had to shut his eyes from the nausea and dizziness that was beginning to overtake his senses.

It was only a few moments later that they arrived at the Dodge. Snow had already began piling up on the vehicle. Cam opened the cab door and helped him crawl into the back. He slowly turned over onto his stomach at the insistence of Cameron. Apparently she was worried that he would puke in his sleep and choke on it, _it's so nice to have everything explained to you in such a blunt fashion._

After assuring John that everything would be fine, he waved her off and tried to get some sleep. She shut the doors and began filling the gas tank of the truck. Ten gallons wouldn't get them very far. Given the vehicles current mileage rates she calculated that they would have an estimated one hundred forty miles of ground to cover before needing more fuel. Placing the gas cans in the back after she finished, she climbed into the drivers seat, turning the heater on high as she cranked the truck. Giving a quick glance at the sleeping John in the back seat, she smiled to herself before putting the truck in drive and continuing towards the former American border.

* * *

**Great Falls, Montana. United States**

**August 23, 2011**

**2:06PM**

* * *

Great Falls, like Lethbridge hadn't been struck with a nuclear blast. The town's population hadn't made it a prime target for termination. Skynet was very efficient, targeting only the cities with large populations at first. Soon the first terminator units would come online and finish off the rest of humanity.

That was one of their prime objectives, strike out at Skynet before it began producing terminators. The first models would be primitive but very effective against humans. The large tank-like robots would man large chain fed machine guns capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute. Humans would begin to die in the thousands in August if they allowed those units to go online.

Cameron pulled the truck through the town as she scanned the roads. It seemed people were still going out and enjoying their day, but they seemed...off. Humans didn't tend to constantly look over their shoulder, whisper to each other, and flee from the sight of a vehicle. Yet the townspeople of Great Falls were exhibiting this behavior today.

It was a relatively small town of about eighty thousand people, with an air force base nearby. She had no information on what amount of people were stationed on the base but the panic would easily spread from there. Armed service members meant lonely humans, lonely humans meant marriage, marriage meant families, families meant a disregard for national security given the proper circumstances. They would have to be careful in case word had already spread of the nuclear apocalypse around the globe.

John Henry had specified a meeting place here, given the fact that it hadn't been hit with missiles yet. She scanned the street signs as they passed them trying to maneuver her and John closer to the base without wasting extra gas, they didn't have any to spare as it was. Soon she found the telltale signs of military encampments as they approached the base.

There was a checkpoint gate about a quarter mile from the actual base and Cameron had to slow down to allow the man inside the booth to question them. He, like everyone else in the town, seemed to be 'on edge' as the truck came to a stop in front of the gate. "ID please," he said, hoping the person inside would hurry up so he could get back to monitoring his dead radio.

"Cameron Phillips and John Connor to see lieutenant General Jonathon Henry," she said coolly. Her eyes never strayed from his, which is more then what she could say for him. The man's pupils had dilated at the sight of her and were currently wandering over every bit of skin he could see.

The man walked up to the vehicle, having only seen the young girl in the cab. Peering inside he saw the boy sleeping in the back, "I'm still going to need and see some ID ma'am." The man settled back down in his stance but remained focused on the girl in front of him.

Cameron froze for a moment, knowing they didn't have any form of ID on them, she quickly debated on what to do. Having decided on incapacitation, she moved her hand to the door handle when a Humvee approached the gate from the base side. A large well built man got out in military uniform and walked up to the gatekeeper.

"They're okay Sykes. We've been expecting them." He came to a stop beside Sykes and gave a comforting nod to Cameron. She returned his nod as Sykes saluted the man. He stepped back inside the booth and raised the gate for them to pass. "Is John okay?" the man inquired, the gate behind him began slowly lifting.

"He's resting Mr. Ellison," she replied before driving forward onto the base. James watched the truck pass him and proceed to the nearest parking area. It had been a year since he saw John and Cameron last, and much had changed. A war over the world had began, and he had began to falter in his faith. There is only so much death you can be prepared fore before beginning to question your beliefs. One thing that Ellison was absolutely sure of, he would stop at nothing to save the world that had been plunged into darkness.

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Sometimes It Isn't Enough**

* * *

_ I should have grown used to it by now, but I haven't._

_ Every time I step outside the base I can't help but see the gray skies. Their bleakness filling the world with despair and isolation._

_ The nights were worse, the glow from the moon caused an iridescent purple glow to shine down on us all._

_ To any outsider I'm sure it would seem as if the end were near, even if they weren't told that soon everyone they knew would be dead._

_ Nobody in the base had been told the meaning of my presence there. They only knew me as a close friend of 'General Henry'._

_ Somehow that helped me deal with things more, knowing that I wasn't the first person with everything on my shoulders, it was John Henry._

_ I didn't know it yet, but John Henry's existence meant the very survival of the human race. More so then maybe my own..._

* * *

**April 29, 2011**

**Great Falls, Montana. Malstrom Air Force Base**

**6:01AM**

* * *

Great Falls would have been a nice town to settle down in if it weren't for Skynet's war. John had grown to like the place, even though he'd only spent a week of his entire existence there. The people of the town seemed friendly, albeit curious that the power had remained off for the entire week. The military had instituted a quarantine of the town, sending half of its troops out to make sure that nobody tried and leave. If they did, they would surely die or return with news of the end of the world to the others. Right now they were trying to avoid panic as much as possible. Few people outside of Cameron, Ellison, and John Henry, knew of the apocalypse waiting for them outside of the towns border. And for the time being, they aimed to keep it that way, it wouldn't be long until they would have to break the news though. You can keep the near extinction of the human race a secret for very long.

The base was a cramped place to be, with no room to do anything. But then again there wasn't a whole lot to do on a military base in the first place. Even in peace time you had specific areas of work you were to pay attention to, the military didn't buy into the whole 'for entertainment purposes' phenomenon. You had the strategy room, mess hall, recreational rooms, and sleeping quarters. Most of the testosterone fueled men on the base resigned themselves to the recreational rooms as much as possible. Lifting weights, working on vehicles, and boxing in the weight room seemed to be the favorite activities for most on the base. For the past five days though, John had been doing nothing but formulating strategies with John Henry, Cameron, and Ellison. During that time he had developed a mutual, although loose, respect for the rogue AI system. John Henry had some really great ideas on fighting the war against his brother and turning the tide in their favor before Skynet began its death grip on humanity.

Cameron had been present during every conference to provide intel on Skynet's time line and development period. Her undying commitment to be within Johns immediate vicinity harbored that as much as possible. At first she merely answered questions presented to her by the AI or John, but over time she had began giving them input of her own. Her knowledge of Skynet's Terminator models, weapons facilities, manufacturing plants, distribution channels, and operating methods were a force to be reckoned with. John Henry had begun backing up as much information that she could deliver as possible, adding it to his own personal archives from his time spent in the future. All three of them made sure to thank her for her assistance at the end of every meeting, she was a true God-send as Ellison had put it one afternoon. General Henry somewhat thanked her one afternoon by noting that she had given him approximately 258 Terabytes worth of information on his brother.

When they weren't spending time in the nearly twelve hour long conferences, John liked to stay in their bunker at all times. People had grown suspicious that the new General seemed to spend so much time with the new teenagers and not his staff, but they were given orders not to ask. John saw no problem in telling them who he was or at least give them a clue on what was happening in the world, Cameron however insisted against such actions; sighting John's safety as a top priority. Most people assumed the newcomers were relatives of General Henry that he had flown in to spend time with. Some of them had accepted that assumption at face value and gone about their business, others were either angry or jealous that the General had brought relatives on base at a time like this. They knew something was wrong in the world, and they weren't allowed to even give hints to their families about what was going on, why should the General be allowed to? On his way through the halls of the facility John and Cameron caught my sneers and angry looks on the way to their bunks everyday.

Today's meeting had been of the utmost importance though, they were actually formulating plans and strategies to use against Skynet rather then gathering information. Two of plans of action would be set in motion in the immediate future. John Henry had been going over the many files presented to him by Cameron over the past twenty four hours and had a favor to ask of her. "Hello Miss. Phillips, Mr. Connor, Mr. Ellison," his head nodded to each of his co-patriots as they entered the room.

"Before we begin, would you mind helping me with a favor Miss. Phillips?" He cocked his gaze back to Cameron and waited patiently for a reply. The information he needed from her would be considered private, and therefore it was polite social protocol to ask for such a thing rather then simply demanding it.

"Only if you stop calling me Miss. Phillips and call me what everyone else calls me," she replied, taking her customary position next to John. Ellison sat at the end of the small table, leaning in and placing his hands gently before him.

"Excellent!" John Henry's face lit up at her requirements for the favor, information such as this would almost certainly have warranted a higher price to be paid. "If it isn't too much to ask for, I would be very much in your debt if you would provide me with the schematics of your endoskeleton model. Your information so far has lacked in that department, and I require it for a new strategy I wish to implement soon."

John's face frowned as he was once again reminded that his best friend was a cyborg. He didn't like to think of her in that way, ever. Even when she'd been damaged before with her metal exposed he had treated her with respect, the kind of respect only shown to the truest friends. "I don't think she'll be..." He felt a squeeze on his hand from under the table and he stopped talking.

"Of course," she replied with a blank face. Revealing her components to anyone other then the people in this room would compromise her integrity and limit her ability to function properly. It would only take a keen mind to discover the weakest points of her assembly and exploit them.

John Henry placed multiple pieces of large white printing files before her with a black ink pen resting on top of the stack of paper. Picking up the pen immediately, she began moving her hand along to draw out the initial schematics of her endoskeleton her eyes never left John Henry's face though. They all sat in silence as she drew and labeled each piece of her body, flipping over page after page in the process.

John eyed Cromartie's old body carefully, it crept him out that the body had once tried to kill him. Then again so had Cameron, but she was forgivable, there was something eerie about the T-888 before him that never conveyed any inkling of 'trust'. At least he didn't need Cameron's chip to function anymore though, that was something John nearly rejoiced over. "Where's his computer equipment at?" John turned his focus to Ellison at the end of the table, "I thought the body had to be plugged in at all times?"

Ellison told him, "An associate of mine at ZeiraCorp, Mr. Murch, modified the skull to John Henry's specifications. It can now receive signals from a single satellite that orbits the Earth." His hands pointed up to the ceiling as he finished his explanation.

"And this, Murch fellow, can he be trusted?" John continued to look at Ellison, not wanting to shift his focus to John Henry unless he needed to. Cameron squeezed his hand again in an attempt for him to calm down, but he continued to grow annoyed at the AI sitting across from him.

"Murch was one of the leading tech developers at the company," Ellison motioned with his hands to John Henry, "He was one of the few people that had true interaction with John Henry before anyone else even had an idea of what we were..."

John cut him off, "But can he be trusted?" The tone in his voice suggested his growing impatience.

Ellison met John's gaze and saw the intensity in the boys eyes, "I trusted him enough to look after your mother while I was gathering information on Kaliba day in and day out."

He laughed snidely at Ellison's remark, "Oh, and how did that go over with mom?" Again, Cameron tightened her grip on John's hand to get him to settle down. From her perspective they were all friendly towards each other, not enemies.

Quickly coming up with a response to end the conversation, Ellison responded, "She scared the living hell out of him on nearly a daily basis." Slowly smiling towards John, hoping he would drop his tone and calm back down.

It wasn't long though before John asked another question, "Where is Much and the equipment though?"

This time it was John Henry who answered in his normal monotone voice, "It is in a hardened facility that nobody else knows the location of. I thought it prudent to keep its confidentiality a secret in case we had a information leak or Skynet attack."

John was about to lay into the cyborg sitting across from him before Cameron set the pen down on the top piece of paper. Sliding the stack over in front of John Henry she simply remarked, "All done." John Henry went over the plans thoroughly. John still had no inclination on what the AI was doing, turning to Ellison and Cameron for any idea on his intentions they both returned his suspicious gaze with one of their own.

Suddenly Henry remarked, "This will work more efficiently." The hologram screen behind the table lit up with advanced schematics that left everyone but John Henry in awe. He had taken the available schematics of Cameron and the T-888 design and merged them to create a new breed of Terminator. "This model will be far superior to the designs of my brother for some years to come. Allowing for advanced tactical missions and close quarter combat with other endoskeletons; it is the perfect anti-terminator Terminator."

The design looked radically advanced to anything he had ever seen before from terminators sent back to assassinate him by Skynet. While others had death like appearances and exposed pistons, John Henry's new model was a stroke of brilliance. If it weren't for the fact that it was rendered before him on the screen as metal, John would have sworn that it could pass for a human. All of the exposed piston areas of the arms and legs had been covered with a protective shield of metal. The design of the chest plate had been refined, making it less bulky and more human-like. Even the skull closely matched that to a human more then the designs he had seen previously. He turned to face John Henry, "How are you going to build it?"

"It will be difficult, the extra metal covered surfaces will require larger amounts of coltan and titanium. But I believe I have found a viable means of assembly." Again the hologram screen behind them lit up with various information regarding an automotive manufacturing plant in Detroit city Michigan, "It will be dangerous to acquire it though. The radiation levels of Detroit and its surrounding areas are very high given the amount of time elapsed from detonation." The room fell silent as he spoke.

"Once control of the plant has been obtained, we will need to provide it with a means of power. The fuel here on base can be used to create a short burst of thermal energy but it would not be sufficient. A hydro-electric plant on the nearby river will though."

Cameron's head turned towards the AI in surprise, "Using Skynet's Prime-1 facility as your own?" His head nodded towards her in agreement of her question. "The excess metal there will be acquired through a security bunker nearby. A storage of excess metal there will be more then enough to complete the first few hundred models of my new design."

John finally spoke up, "And we're supposed to just waltz in there, take over the plant, supply it with power, and transport metal to it. All the while not getting blasted with radiation, and avoid Skynet in the process?"

The AI acknowledged John casually, "It will prove to be very difficult. My services in the war hinge upon my ability to provide a means to stop my brother Mr. Connor. I cannot do that without this facility. According to Camerons' information, my brother will not attempt to have this plant up and running before August. After that he will use it as the main hub of assembly for the T-1 models. If we are to strike, it must be now."

"What happens in July?" John turned his attention to his female companion. She looked over at him with a hurt expression passing over her features. John needed to know if they were to proceed with General Henry's plan, but it almost seemed as if she didn't want to burden him with the information.

He gave her a slight squeeze of the hand before she began, "July thirteenth twenty eleven, Skynet gains control over the former automobile factory. Its call sign is changed to Prime-1. Using various means of power it begins to harness the facility for machine assembly. Many of the plants functions run by means of automated assembly lines though some parts of the plant still require human interaction. Skynet begins to create concentration camps on the exterior of all assembly plants. Captured humans are then forced to convert the plant into a fully autonomous facility. Afterward Skynet exterminates anyone remaining in the camps. All future assembly plants follow this chain of action. The Prime-1 location begins production of the T-1 class Terminator, having ten-thousand ready by August twenty eleven."

He let the information sink in slowly as she recited it from her internal database, "ten...ten thousand?" This time it was Cameron who gave him a comforting squeeze of the hand, nodding to him in response.

"Yes, but that doesn't matter. After the initial test run of the T-1 variant Skynet will begin self improvements on the design. By December twenty eleven it will already have advanced to the T-3 models. By April of next year..." John held up his free hand to cut her off. He could see where she was headed with her speech. John Henry was right, if they were going to strike it needed to be done now.

Ellison, usually reserving himself until the final discussions of the evening were made, leaned forward in his chair to address the AI before him, "How many people can we expect to loose in this operation John Henry?"

His eyes went blank as numerous calculations were made on the hologram screen. Many of them scanned by so fast that it was hard for even Cameron's eye servos to keep up with them. No more then five seconds had past since Ellison had asked his question when he was given a reply, "On a best outcome scenario we will loose no one. However given the radiation effects of the city, and the lingering patrols of my brother, I calculate this mission has a 83.45912 percent success rate. The minimal load of coltan needed will require the lifting of many tons of force, this body will suffice. I can not do it alone though. Cameron and I are more then capable of carrying out the mission by ourselves."

"You mean send her along with you into a highly radiated city?" John remarked. The AI's head nodded in reply. "Forget about it, I went through hell the last time to get her back, she's not your plaything." He turned his attention to everyone in the room except John Henry. His face red from seething with anger, "We use a ten man team, that will be more then enough to get things going." And with that he bit down on his tongue and stormed out of the room.

Cameron lingered for a moment before turning to John Henry, "Are you sure this can be done?" She remained frozen in the doorway waiting for an answer.

"The success rate hinges upon human survival with the inclusion of John's parameters. Given that scenario, I calculate the success rate as being 23.81596 percent," he looked up at her creepily as he relayed the information to her. Nodding in his reply, she turned and exited the room.

Cameron mulled over the information garnered from the meeting today, John had became angered by the last few minutes of exchange. She had remained unbiased in the conference though , there were going to be risks in taking over the factory; everyone knew nothing can be achieved in war without sacrifice. Skynet knew of the factories presence, which meant it was already planning to take it over for its own use. The fact that John was willing to sacrifice human lives just to protect her though left her troubled.

On one hand she felt thankful that he was emotionally attached to her enough to warrant a 'protective' stance whenever she came into harm. On the other hand risking human lives when another less costly option was on the table didn't make sense to her. She would ask him about the conflict later, for now she pushed it to the back of her processor and continued following John.

The room was quiet as always as John walked in an removed his shirt, letting it fall down beside his cot. "Cam, we need to talk." He plopped down on the bed face first in his typical lackadaisical style, kicking off his boots as he settled into the bed. They clattered into the wall as they were flung free from his feet.

"Yes?" Was all she replied with. She took up her customary seat at the table across from John, waiting for him to begin his explanation as to why she wouldn't be accompanying John Henry alone in Detroit.

"If you were going to evacuate the town, how would you do it?" he mumbled from the bed. His head never turned to face her, it remained looking at the wall in front of him.

That question took her off guard for a few moments, she didn't have an immediate answer available. He had presented her with a complex question and even more appealing, he trusted her enough to give him an honest answer. She smiled to herself before formulating a plan.

"Given the available resources of the air force base it seems highly unlikely that we can plausibly fly everyone with us to a new base. Many people should have their own vehicles still functional this soon after the blasts. The amount left of fuel left in the 10 gas station tanks should supply everyone with enough fuel to follow along to a safe place once we leave." She eyed him sheepishly as he finally turned his head towards her.

"And you're sure that would account for roughly 40,000 vehicles of gasoline?" he breathed a deep lungful of air before exhaling slowly. The AI in the other room hadn't even mentioned an escape route for the townspeople during their many days of communication with each other. He knew of John Henry's importance, yet he still felt irked every time they left a meeting without addressing the issue of saving the members of the town.

"The average vehicle has a gas tank of roughly fifteen gallons of gas, likewise the average size of an underground tank of gas stations are fifteen thousand gallons. With that ratio of gas we could fuel ten thousand vehicles with one tank of gas, giving them an estimated 225 mile radius in which to migrate." She seemed quite proud at herself for 'laying it all out for him' as he liked to put it. Anything John needed to know was always ready to recitation.

He finally sat up on the bed, "That's not very far. We'd have to set them up in a temporary camp before we left them to complete the Detroit op." His eyes fell to the floor as he brought his hand up to scratch the back of his head, "You think it could work?" He stopped scratching his head and looked back up to Cameron for some finality to the plan.

"The math is there, math doesn't lie," she stated. Which was true, given the proper circumstance anything was possible via calculations, "Though putting eight people to a vehicle may prove to be a problem to some."

John chuckled to himself, "Yea well they can fucking deal with it. The world's went to shit and they want complain about leg space, they can be left behind to die if that's the case." Instead of picking up on his humor like he'd intended her to, she scowled in his direction.

"That is not an effective leadership strategy John," she had to turn her head away from him in order to avoid the various things her logic core was telling her to do to him. "I'll let John Henry know of the plan tomorrow, for now you need to rest. It's been over three days since you last slept." With that she crossed her legs, and began cleaning the dirt from under her fingernails.

His head recoiled a little by her harsh tone to him. _I'll be damned if she tells me when to sleep and when not to sleep. I was joking around with her. Doesn't she see that?_ They had three days before the Detroit op would begin, which left two days before they needed to evacuate everyone. Given that John Henry went along with the plan, which he was sure the AI would, it would be a quick acted plan but one that could be done.

"Do you think any of this is going to work?" he said, shoulders slumping in defeat. Women were difficult to be around for John. That was definitely saying something considering the one constant person in his life had been his mother since as long as he could remember anything about himself. Cameron was even harder to be around then his mother with her emotions now present, it made it difficult for him to interpret how she was feeling. Though normally when she was confused about something she would come right out and tell him about it.

"Every plan has its faults and risks John," she said quietly, having finished cleaning her nails to the best of her ability. She pulled up an audio byte of a Deadmau5 track and played it in the background of her systems before carrying on her conversation, "you should know that."

John hadn't slept in over three days and she could see that effect starting to wear on him. His skin had gotten pale and his eyes were beginning to sink back in his head, forming large dark circles under each of them. He didn't look well either, most of the time he halfway stumbled to anywhere he walked, and he was rarely eating at all. One way or another he would be falling asleep today, even if it meant putting herself into standby to force him to end his conversation.

He looked over at her and joked, "Not exactly the 'way to go John' response I was looking for Cam." She pouted towards him. John was sitting on the bed laughing at her blunt reaction to everything, "What do you think of the plan."

"You shouldn't be worried about that right now," her eyes settled on his chest, watching it rise and fall, "right now you need to sleep." The track of Deadmau5 ended in her head, she immediately put it on repeat again.

"How can you say that right now? How am I supposed to sleep with all this shit going on." He flung his arms around in the air to accentuate the point he was trying to make. If she was going into a 'pissy' mood then he could damn well match it. "Have you experienced stress yet? I highly doubt you know how I feel right now if you haven't" His face scowled at her as he spoke.

She looked at him with an emotionless face. His words affected her, but right now she wouldn't let that show. What John needed most right now was not an argument, it was rest. In her experience with Derek Reese and Sarah Connor arguments were not a plausible way to achieve rest, unless the goal of the argument was something Derek had called 'makeup sex'. Both scenario's were not going to happen at this time, not if she could help it.

He kept on staring at her as she pondered how to proceed, "Well? Have you?" Normally she didn't take this long to respond to anything, she was normally direct in her approach to anything. The only time she really got caught up in anything was when she was in the middle of experiencing an emotion for the first time.

Her database was scanning through thousands of possibilities to help him relax. She hadn't even heard him ask her if she was okay or not, right now she was totally absorbed in the plebeian task of relaxing John. Suddenly she came across an appealing response based on a bit of research she had performed online. During many nights she studied for relaxation techniques for Sarah, coming across Autonomous Sensory Meridian Responses late one night. The process hadn't yielded any success with Sarah, but John was different.

Selecting a reply to begin the ASMR simulation, her voice lowered to being barely above a whisper, "John close your eyes." Instead of doing as she asked, he raised his eyebrows at her. _This is it, she's lost it._

"Uh Cam?" His eyes roamed over her trying to discover the sudden shady demeanor she possessed. She didn't seem to be doing much, her face remained in the blank stare. Her legs had remained crossed as he continued to gawk at her. Soon she stood up from her seat and began calmly walking towards him. He gulped a mouthful of air she she swayed over to him. If he was dreaming, and he almost certainly was sure he was, he would almost say she was trying to seduce him.

As she sat down next to him on the bed he kept his eyes and face glued to the wall in front of him. Too apprehensive to move them anywhere other then that lovely patch of brown dirt on the wall. He felt her lean in close to his left ear and whisper, "Breath slowly and close your eyes John."

His heart began beating so fast it felt as if it were about to burst from his chest. He took in a deep breath before looking down at his hands, they were shaking and beginning to get very sweaty. A small voice in the back of his mind didn't help in the matter, _You know what she's doing, just play along. Come on John just play along!_

Taking another deep breath, he slowly closed his eyes and exhaled. He stared off into the blackness of his eyelids and waited for whatever it was she was about to do. John wasn't one to like giving up the security of one of his senses, his ears strained to pick up any noise around him; the mumbled footsteps and voices in the hallway, the silent tapping of weapons being cleaned, and the sound of Cameron's simulated breathing. Slowly though, he began to calm down a little from the stress of the meetings he had in the past week with John Henry. As more and more time elapsed he could feel his shoulders relax from their stiff positions, his breathing slowed down, and his muscles began to smooth out.

Satisfied that he was finally listening to her, she picked up a hollow canteen and began tapping it with her fingernails. Rolling them across it in slow sensuous patterns as the sounds echoed in the room. At first it looked like the feeling was having the desired response, John was relaxing. But soon his face began scrunching up in a questionable expression again. Maybe the tapping stimuli was not an appropriate trigger for John. He would have to rely on touch to relax, she quickly pulled up the routines and exercises she had studied for such a method and began to apply them.

Cameron stood up in front of him and removed her overcoat, letting it fall to her side. She knelt before him and raised her upper body up enough to hug him over the shoulders. His arms remained frozen by her sides, not sure of what to do. Leaning in closer to his face she let her forehead rest against his. John's breathe was coming in short gasps now, trying not to breath too heavily into Cam's face which he knew was right up against his.

"Open your eyes," she said softly, barely above a whisper. With his heart about to explode, hands sweating bullets, and his mouth completely dry; he opened his eyes to see Cameron's captivating chocolate gaze staring back at him. If he had any inkling into what was about to transpire, it melted at the sight of her before him. He was about to ask her something before he forgot what it was. It was almost as if she could read his mind because at that moment she brought her hand up in between their faces and slowly caressed him, "Shh."

Making sure to keep her movements as slow and fluid as possible, she leaned back onto her legs and began moving her hands across his face. She brushed off a small accumulation of dirt and sweat on his forehead before running her fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp as she did. Bringing them back down to his face, she sensuously began rubbing his temples in small circles. She smiled to herself when she saw him relax and ease his face into her hands.

"Lay down," she whispered. Gently nudging him down onto the bed as if he were made of glass. As his head touched the pillow she removed her hands from his face and sat up straight. With the grace of a ballet dancer, she leaned down and began removing her boots. Laying them down carefully on the floor, she returned her hands to his feet, kneading out all of the soreness and tension. After a few moments her hands floated above his legs in the same fashion, making slow soothing circles along his clothes.

He was so relaxed he could barely even feel anything below his waist, but he was still hesitant to try and fall asleep. Even though she was getting him to calm down, he still didn't feel the need to go to sleep. People were depending on him and John Henry too much for him to be dreaming right now.

Beneath her fingertips she could sense his mind beginning to wander again. His heartbeat had increased slightly and his face had a look of worry about it. She moved her hands up from his thighs to his stomach. Tracing every muscle that had began to make themselves prominent, she applied a deep tissue massage to his abdominal area. Her hands moved from one muscle to the next slowly erasing all of the tension from his body. It wasn't long before she heard what she'd wanted to hear nearly twenty minutes ago, the sound of John snoring.

She smiled to herself and gave a 'pat on the back' in light of her accomplishment as John would say. Doing as she had in the bunker a few days before, she laid down quietly beside him. Making sure to tuck her hair behind her so that none of it would wake him up, she slowed her breathing and overlaid the sleep pattern on her sensors. Slipping into a standby 'sleep' mode, their quarters filled with silence, and the occasional snore from John.

* * *

**May 2, 2011**

**Great Falls, Montana. Malstrom Air Force Base**

**8:23AM**

* * *

"Malstrom tower this is Iron Eagle 1, Malstrom tower this is Eagle 1. Prepping for takeoff." The pilot began powering up his equipment in the cabin while men scurried around outside his jet. He didn't see the point in this op he was going to be flying security for. If what the General said was true, that whole town was going to be gushing with radiation. He simply didn't see the need in risking his own safety to recover a 'valuable resource'.

So what if the commodity they were heading out to get would help in the 'machine' war? It was still his ass out there flying in a jet aircraft. The only thing that kept him from jumping out of the cockpit and returning to his bunk were the General's orders. Sykes knew that to disobey them at a time like this would be sheer suicide, and suicide wasn't high up on his bucket list. He ran through the last few sequences along the control panels and grabbed the yoke of the aircraft to begin his check of the props.

The men outside the jet began scrambling the C-130 Super Hercules carrier aircraft in the main cargo hanger. There were two of the large planes on base, both had nearly drained the bases stores of fuel in preparation for today's Detroit operation. Like Sykes in the F-16, many of them had doubts about the mission, most of them wanted to warn their families of the events happening around the world. But the men had orders from the General that this was the best course of action, and they would see it through to the best of their abilities.

Sykes completed his prop check and began taxing out onto the runway, still waiting his clearance from the control tower before takeoff. His mind flashed back to the meeting everyone had just left. The General had set them all down in the conference room that he never ever left and told them everything. Machines had taken over the world. It was as simple an explanation as ever. Goddamn machines had taken over the world, and blown up half of it in the process. Nobody believed him at first of course until they were presented with the evidence from Mr. Ellison.

The man had told them a strange tale of ludicracy and horror. How he had chased a machine over a decade of his life, and how it had mown through 20 FBI agents in a hotel room in California. Vasquez and Sykes knew immediately what he was talking about. The news story had garnered national attention for a few days on television. The most shocking Ellison possessed was the first hand proof that the machines existed, that he wasn't crazy for believing in the General, nobody was crazy.

Before them on a table he laid down a human hand wrapped in a clear plastic bag. He said that it was left over from a female 'Terminator' bot that had attempted to attack ZeiraCorp. At least the hand looked human until the bag was removed and they could see the wires and pistons emerging from the wrist. Vasquez had claimed it was all a joke, and that she was heading to her bunker before the General had ordered her to approach the table.

Sykes would never forget what happened next for as long as he lived. As Vasquez stood in front of the table, General Henry had taken the hand and began peeling the flesh from its bones. He'd told them not to be alarmed, and ordered them to remain seated. Finally with a slight tug the skin was removed from the gleaming metal mechanics below it. They all passed it around the room and had a first hand look at it, it was the real deal. Nobody in that room doubted what came out of the General's mouth next when he said that capturing the resource in Detroit was of the utmost importance. Shuddering at the thought of the meeting, Sykes clung to a metallic cross on his necklace and silently prayed to himself.

Out on the tarmac, John Henry and his group of associates began assembling. John looked more rested then he had a few days beforehand, Cameron looked as...well 'Cameron-y' as she could be, and Ellison was armed to the teeth with guns of various caliber. The Sergeant was a one man army as he took his place beside John Henry, glancing at everyone else running around the runway. Cameron had maneuvered unusually close to John, laying her arm across his chest in a very protective manner.

"Alright remember," John began squinting as the roar of the jet engine kicked up dust in its preparation for takeoff, "We're in and out in under an hour. Any longer and we risk getting heavily effected by the nuke, even with the suits on." His voice almost shouted the last few words as the jet engine throttled up and began its journey down the runway. Ellison nodded, as did Cameron. John Henry kept his eyes steadied on the skies above Sykes' plane. "Are you sure those men will begin the evacuations as soon as we liftoff?" he called out to John Henry.

The cyborg turned his gaze to John before answering, "They have their orders, they will follow them." As if that were all the explanation he needed to give, he turned his head back towards the skies and began monitoring them again. John didn't like leaving things to chance. He'd been born with his mothers words inscribed into his brain, _You are mankind's last hope. The fate of an entire species of life hangs on your shoulders John. You cannot fail._

Cameron turned to John and hovered over his ear for better listening, "Family and love is a strong motivator in war." She reassured him as much as she could by squeezing his hand slightly. John returned the friendly gesture with a slight smile, his mind still worrying about the days mission.

John Henry's head snapped back around to their positions, "Run! Now!" Before they had a chance to react a streak of smoke came screaming down and erupted in a ball of flames that used to be Sykes' jet. He had nearly cleared the runway as the jet sprawled back down to the ground with a thunderous explosion. People began instantly hitting the floor as machine gun fire opened up on them from above. Cameron never let go of John's hand as they began running for the cover of the cargo hanger. He glanced over his shoulder to see an HK prototype drone hovering above the airfield, two gleaming white Predator drones, closing in on them fast on each side of the HK.

"Scramble all aircraft!" yelled John Henry with his hands up in the air waving at the control tower. The men inside saw his signal and turned towards their control panel before being engulfed in another explosion. A secondary missile collided with the towers midsection, transforming the entire building into a large bonfire. Fire erupted from the tower windows as it began to crumble on its now week base. The tons of building material rained down on a secondary hanger housing huddled men and planes. "To the planes everyone! NOW!" John Henry turned to Ellison and grabbed a M-16 and opened fire to ward off the Predator drones.

Screams and orders were shouted in every direction as the Predator drones flew over head and began to bank around to open fire again. Unprepared for the attack, the men and women scurried to the weapons center for ammo and rifles. The HK scanned the large movement towards the building and opened fire on the tarmac with its .50 caliber machine guns. The bullets streaked through the air, mowing down people as fast as they could run, and chewing up the pavement in the process. John watched as clouds of blood spewed into the air as each person was hit, the ground below the group had turned from black to red, painted with the blood of the dead soldiers. He couldn't take it anymore, and yelled to the remaining survivors, "Run, RUN!"

Cameron had grabbed him again and they began making a run for the cargo hanger holding the second available C-130. "Run John, come on! Run!" she screamed at him. Her speed nearly dragging him across the pavement as the HK turned in mid air and began destroying the hangers next to the two C-130 hangers. Fuel and planes sent the buildings into a massive fireball as the smoke billowed up into the sky. With each volley of its bullets more and more screams erupted into the air. "Almost there John!" he could hear the desperation in her voice as she now practically carried him to the cargo hanger.

As soon as she screamed at him, he lost all hearing in both ears. No more then twenty feet directly over their heads, a missile flew from a Predator directly into the cargo bay to their left. The most heavily armed C-130 burst the hanger into a colossal mountain of flames as everyone fell to the ground from the force of the blast. Ellison was the first on his feet after recovering from the shock of the hanger explosion, he spun around on his heel and brought the RPG up from his side and steadied it on his shoulder. "You guys better get out of here, NOW! And start the city-wide evacuation!"

He pressed the ignition and the rocket propelled itself out of its cave, arcing straight for the nearest Predator drone. As it connected with its target, he dropped the RPG and aimed an M16 assault rifle at the HK before opening fire on it. Not even concerned with the small 'pings' along its hull, the HK continued a sweeping blast of .50 caliber fire to mow down another small group of running humans. The bullets did little to no damage to the metallic drone as it flew overhead and approached the city.

John watched it disappear before Cameron yanked him up from the pavement and began hauling him to the other C-130. John Henry snatched the rifle away from Ellison before telling him to leave while he could on the plane with Cameron and John. He patted the cyborg on the shoulder before taking off after the two teens. The planes engines had began full power up, and it wouldn't be long before it was ready for takeoff, General Henry only needed to buy them a minute or two of time.

The second drone finished its wide bank and started heading straight for an encampment of men hiding behind the remains of a hanger. "You men! Get out of there quickly!" he yelled at them, bringing his weapon up and opening fire on the rapidly approaching drone. Most of the men escaped before it collided with their hiding place, creating another mushroom cloud as it exploded in a ball of flames. He waved the men over to the carrier jet as it began taxing out onto the runway.

Sprinting at full force, he reached the jet in no time, leaving the other men scrambling after him. John and Ellison yelled at the men from the cargo door of the jet, "COME ON! HURRY UP! GET ON!" Both of them screamed at the top of their lungs as the survivors began clambering up the walkway of the door. John turned his gaze from the struggling men to the city off in the distance.

The HK drone was opening fire on the town, using both its missiles and machine guns to eradicate the people in the streets. He tapped Cameron on the shoulder and motioned over to flying death machine, "Think you can hit it from here?"

Her gaze hovered over the HK before giving John a thumbs up. He grabbed an RPG from Ellison and shoved it into her hands. Hitting the deck of the plane he screamed out to everyone, "Fire in the hole!" Everyone ducked and covered their ears as the blast echoed in the plane. The wheels of the large plane lifted off into the air as the rocket flew gracefully through the air. A few moments later it connected with the HK's rear tail and plummeted to a nearby rooftop.

John stood back up and congratulated Cameron with a slight slap on the back. He beamed at pride over to her as everyone else began a chorus of, "No, no. God no. Why? This can't be happening." Turning to see what the men were talking about, he found them all staring back out of the open cargo bay door. Vasquez dropped her rifle to the deck of the plane and fell back down to her knees, her mouth wide open in horror. Hendricks held his face in his hands and began weeping near the cockpit of the plane.

The sound of eruptions and explosions filled his ears as he turned to see a squad of over one hundred HK drones descend from the gloomy clouds, opening fire on the town below. He could almost hear the blood curling screams of the patrons below over the roar of the engine jets. He dropped to his knees beside Cameron as a tear fell down his cheek. She lifted her hand and placed it on his left shoulder in a comforting manner as the cargo bay door slowly closed before his eyes. The sounds of the missile hits slowly faded to a dull thud in the distance.

* * *

**May 2, 2011**

**Former NORAD Defense base – Skynet Headquarters**

**8:59 AM**

* * *

The defense system reviewed the footage of the Great Falls extinction very carefully from the eyes of its HK drones. The town was of no consequence to the AI, in that meaning the mission was a success just as countless others were around the globe. What had garnered the attention of Skynet though was the resistance to its plan. The first part of the mission had been simple, immobilize the air force base, which the HK's had performed flawlessly in that aspect of the mission. However, there had been some difficulty in securing the Air Base after the initial attack. The humans there seemed very efficient at fighting back at the relatively slow prototype drone.

They had shown some reluctance to engage the Predator drones though. Skynet could only assume that the speed and reputation of the aircraft prevented all but two of the patrons from opening fire on the gleaming white merchants of death. Those that had fired were extremely effective though, one of the humans had taken down the drone with a well aimed RPG while another man simply unloaded an entire magazine of ammunition into another before it had crashed.

The screen reviewed the data over and over again over the course of the next few minutes before shutting the video file. Almost immediately afterward it opened a new index in its database under the 'Unnamed' category and began pouring new schematics and design improvements to the HK drone into it. Serrano Point had been acquired, along with a small munitions factory to begin assembling the fully fledged Aerial machines that Skynet had planned for use. All it needed now was a design to implement and it would be ready to begin forcing humans to building their own grim reapers.

Noting improvements in several categories related to both aircraft it began assembling a holographic representation of the new and improved design. It featured elements of both the Predator and the HK prototype. The sleek and aerodynamic body of the Predator would allow for higher speeds then the HK was normally capable of. If one thing Skynet found a problem with the feared Predator drone during its surveillance of the attack, it was the crafts speed. The drones had barely even managed to fire off a single shot at low altitude before having to bank again for another flyover.

That simply would not do in Skynet's eyes, and it was more then willing to sacrifice the massive speed of the Predator drone to compensate for increased killing effectiveness. Finally deciding on vertical take off and landing engines for the craft, it designated them to be on the two wings protruding from the main hull. For now, although this first design was merely a test of the new schematic, a third engine was placed at the tail of the machine.

The standard field of view in the HK drone was also replaced with a solitary HUD consisting of infrared. This would allow for greater functionality in normally poor visual conditions. Another thing it decided to keep from the HK predecessor were the twin .50 caliber machine guns along the underside of its wings. This would allow for more damage to be inflicted after the initial missile attacks. Soon it completed a design for a multiple missile system capable of holding ten missile per wing rather then the standard two per wing payload it currently held. It then turned its attention back to the aerodynamics of the machine and added twin tail-wings to the back of the aircraft for improved stabilization purposes.

Soon the AI completed its digital mockup of its newest creation, the designated name for the creation was the: HK-Aerial T-2 prototype. Sending this data over to the processing plant for manufacturing, the AI then sent out a message to all HK's to capture surviving humans for internment rather then terminating them. The facility pinged back its response of receiving the T-2 Aerial HK schematics and shifted itself into standby mode, waiting for human interaction for production to begin. Multiple HK signatures from around the globe also bounced their pings in to convey the understanding of their orders. Skynet turned its focus back to the archived video file of many more attacks taking place in the former United States. Selecting small clips to study again, it began improving upon the T-2 variant aerial HK with each file it watched.

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: I'm Sorry John...**

* * *

_ As the days wear on I find myself asking less and less of a 'What If' scenario and more and more 'What am I going to do next?'_

_ You can't just think about the immediate blow back and effects of doing something on a daily basis now._

_ No now I had to think about how something would benefit or hinder us, ten or fifteen years into the future._

_ How does one stay sane with all the insanity in the world today?_

* * *

**May 2, 2011**

**Skies above Battle Creek, Michigan**

**1:16PM**

* * *

_This was one for the books,_ thought Vasquez as they approached the Battle Creek airport from a distance. Today had tested her patience and sanity. _First we learn killer robots have have taken over the world, then they try and kill us before dinner!_

One of the most fucked up days ever in her opinion was drawing to a close and a quiet tone hovered over the small group of seven survivors. Angela half hoped that Battle City hadn't been hit by the blasts yet but as they looked out of the windows it looked like the entire place had been struck with a high powered air cannon. Once proud architecture lay strewn across the ground, luscious green patches of grass fields had given way to gray expanses of Earth; the effects of the nukes had certainly done their jobs. Unable to be maintained properly, the structures that did remain standing were blasted with dirt and debris, windows blown out in every opening and large holes gaping in nearly every structure for as far as the eyes could see. The only people that inhabited the town were now riding in a large C-130 that was taxing along the tarmac of the airport on the western edge of the town.

They hadn't been given a chance to do much sight-seeing during the flight, and now that the men and women looked out at the large field of destruction they all muttered silent curses and prayers to themselves. "Dios Mios," was all that could travel up from Angela' throat.

She was a skinny but slightly muscular, black-haired, respectable twenty-two-year old woman who had the look of someone you seriously didn't want to mess with when she was angry. Her flight suit had been replaced with the radiation suits like everyone else on the plane, and it hid her features well. Angela's appearance didn't go over well with that of her crew, but she didn't give a damn; men were pigs and always would be. They were always staring at her as she walked through the barracks of Malstrom air force base, and it was no different on the plane. It wouldn't be long before the men started eying that Cameron chick in the same fashion.

All in all it had already been a trying day for the team but they knew it was far from over. There were not going to be congratulatory 'Welcome Home' banners for them as the plane came to a rest, no groups of proud and anxious families waiting for them; there was only the mission. _Bout damn time, this metals cramping my ass_, she thought as the plane slowly ground to a halt on the tarmac.

Almost as soon as the final lurch of the plane ended she heard General Henry's voice pierce the air, "Glad to see we've all made it here in one piece. There has been a change of plans."

"Sir?" asked Hernandez, concerned at the idea of anything ever not going according to plan. The crew of the plane all turned their attention to the General and awaited an explanation.

He opened his mouth and began his speech, "This has all been a very hard day for you, I do not wish to loose more men to the fight then need be. Cameron and I will be completing this Op alone. Those who remain behind will be tasked with securing the plane for takeoff later, and setting up a base of operations in the airport." His arm raised to the window and pointed to the half demolished building on the other side of the runway.

The men grew deathly quiet. Angela listened to the sound of the slight breeze glancing alongside the hull of the aircraft, nobody dared question a superior officer; except for Hernandez, the stupid idiot. "But sir. You'll need our help won't you?"

General Henry merely replied, "No." The simplicity of his answer let them all know that his words were to be followed. Angela for one was happy that they wouldn't be traipsing into a radiated city just to capture a 'resource'. "Any more questions?" The General said calmly.

This time it was the boy who always stood beside Cameron who spoke up, "Uh yea, I got a question for you." The boy, John, glared at the General with his fists clenched and teeth bared. Cameron raised her hand and touched the side of his neck, Angela barely even saw her muscles tense as the boy dropped to the floor. _Had she really just put him to sleep with just a slight twitch of her fingers?_

Ellison shot both John Henry and Cameron a snide face as he walked over to help Connor up. "Alright everyone, you have your orders. See them through." And with that the General turned along with Cameron and left the plane.

Just as her feet touched the tarmac outside the girl looked towards the still silent crew of the plane and said, "If anything happens to him, I will kill you all." Everyone followed her eyes to where John was laying on the floor. Her face was completely devoid of emotion, and they were all somehow sure she wasn't lying.

Angela turned and looked at the unconscious boy on the floor with curiosity, _What makes him so goddamn important? Stupid bitch needs to get her head in the game._ Ellison picked the boy up with a slight, "Hmph," and started making his way down the cargo door.

She turned to the team of two men behind her, "Alright lets move out, grab your gear." It would be her ass if the General came back and the base hadn't been secure like he had asked, and that was something she wasn't going to let happen. If the man saw fit to be eating a candle-light dinner on a table-clothed piece of furniture in the middle of the runway, she would damn well make it happen.

The men all groaned behind her as they gathered their rifles and began jogging down after their SO. Angela wasn't paying attention to them though, she had more pressing concerns on her mind. Her eyes surveyed the surroundings carefully, trying to determine the best place to position the whiny Hernandez. "Com check," she said, turning back to the men at her rear. They all squawked their radios to confirm they were working before she nodded in reply, "Alright. Hernandez. You get your ass up there on the remains of that control tower. I don't care if its about to collapse or not, should give you a nice birds eye view of anything in the area."

Hernandez nodded and began to jog across the runway to the tower. She watched him for a few seconds before looking back at Hendricks and Ellison, "You two are with me. General wants a bachelor pad in the airport when he gets back, we're gonna give him one." Both men raised their eyebrows at her before setting off at a quick pace behind her.

As they entered the remains of the airport they could hear the crackling of electric wires and equipment all around them. Slowly but surely, Angela and Hendricks, methodically checked areas of concern with the ends of their rifles before turning to Ellison and giving the all clear. They had decided to setup in the large area of the lobby, it would provide ample room to move around, and plenty of exits should the need arrive.

"Alright, you two stay here and I guess watch over the kid. I'm gonna do a perimeter sweep," she told them and set off down one of the long boarding halls of the airport.

"Whats with her?" muttered Ellison as he shook his head in Angela's direction.

Hendricks suppressed a laugh and whispered to Ellison, "She just thinks she has to work twice as hard and twice as mean to get us to follow an order."

She didn't pay them any attention as she rounded the corner and brought her weapon up to begin her sweep. Angela kept on walking past all of the debris, taking careful notice of the route she was taking. It wasn't like she had ever had the opportunity to visit the _majestic _Battle City during any off time on the base. Every ten or fifteen steps she would mark a visible piece of wall or debris with a red stick of chalk to let a future patrol know of her path.

As she neared the end of the maze that was the airport her stomach began to growl from the lack of food for today. "Them locos better have remembered to pack the MRE's in their bags," she grumbled as her eyes studied the massive wall of collapsed roof in front of her. "Mama needs some food," she chuckled as she turned and headed back the way she had came.

If she was lucky, Hendricks would had remembered the non-standard MRE's and a juicy meal would be waiting on her upon return to the central area. Her mouth began watering at the thought of something to eat other then rice or other bland food. As far as she could tell, he had that bag of his loaded down with damn near everything he possessed inside of it. Every time he picked it up today she could hear him grunting under its weight. Even though he was practically the mule of the group, their equipment shouldn't be burdening him enough to cause him stress or anything. She licked her lips as she rounded the corner and walked back over to the camp site.

_Thank. God._ Her mind yelled as she saw the two men eating out of the small packets. She vaulted over the row of seats and came crashing down on top of Ellison's cache of weapons. "Aw shit!" she yelped as the pain of metal colliding with her ass sent her sprawling out into the floor.

"Next time, just walk around." Ellison chuckled as he handed her an MRE to eat. Growling at her own stupidity, she took it and sat down next to Hendricks, who was face down devouring his meal. She took of the ridiculously large helmet of the radiation suit and placed it on the floor beside her.

Angela ripped the top off of her packet and began eating as well, she was nearly halfway finished before she turned to Ellison and nodded towards the sleeping John, "Whats his story? He some kind of relation to the General?" Hendricks stopped too, everyone had been wondering what the kid's importance was ever since he had shown up at Malstrom.

"John?" Both people across from Ellison nodded in unison. "Oh. No John's not related to John Henry."

Angela quirked her eyebrow at the black man still eating his meal casually, "Hey! Whats makes him so damn important all the time? We get special orders from that weirdo girl and the stone faced General to keep him safe. What makes him a higher priority then any of us?"

Ellison sat his packet of food down and wiped his mouth, "You remember the briefing earlier this morning right?" Again, both of them nodded in unison. He continued speaking and they clung onto every word as it left his lips, "This _boy_ has been fighting machines since before he was born. He's seen more pain and suffering then you or even I ever have. John and Cameron both have been through hell trying to stop all of this," his hands waved around in the air at the destruction surrounding them, "from ever happening."

_This kid? The one drooling on my jacket, curled up in a ball on the floor has survived that long?_ "Bullshit," she snapped back at him. "You may have given us proof that machines exist, and they are trying to kill us. Hell, we all saw the product of that supposed _tall tale_ today at Malstrom. But what makes him such a priority. That's what I'm getting at James. I want to know exactly why it takes three military personnel and an ex-FBI agent just to watch him sleep."

With a defeated shrug of his shoulder and slow exhale Ellison replied, "Because, he's the General."

"Aw don't give me that load of _Just following orders crap_! If the General had ordered us to go with him to the OP-site we would have done it." she was beginning to loose patience with Ellison. Hendricks sat next to her and slowly began stuffing his mouth with food, hoping she wouldn't bring him into this interrogation.

Ellison smiled, "No, no. You don't understand. John Henry's not the General." He motioned down to the sleeping Connor on the floor, "John is."

She pointed her fork at John on the floor and continued looking at Ellison, who returned her gaze with a 'Yea I said it' expression. "The kid, has been orchestrating this entire thing?"

Again, James couldn't help but smile, "I told you, he's been fighting these things since before he was even born. First his mother, and now him. You don't expect him to be some sort of rookie after going through all of that do you?"

This time it was finally Hendricks who swallowed his food and asked a question, "Where's his mother at? Don't get me wrong, if the kid is who you say he is then we're lucky to have him. But wouldn't two people be better then one against some machine invasion."

A look of hurt and sorrow came across Ellison's face as he finished his question, "Sarah? Sarah lost her life in the battle against the machines before any of this ever happened." He stopped a few moments to look down at John again, "If anyone in this world ever deserved an afterlife of peace it was Sarah Connor."

"Was she some sort of badass mamacita?" Angela asked a little snidely.

"Sarah Connor endured more pain then I've ever seen a human being be put through." His mind flashed back to helping Sarah in the motel only a few months ago. She didn't think he was watching her as carefully as he was, not seeing the toll that Skynet was taking on her body.

He remembered the look of horror on his face as he lifted her blood soaked shirt and caught a glimpse of the many scars that littered her body. She had died in his arms before he had even made it back to ZeiraCorp after their attack on the Kaliba manufacturing facility. The thing that was firmly burned into his brain was the look of sheer peace on her face as the end drew nearer and nearer. She had smiled up towards him and said, "Tell him I'll be waiting for him." Before Ellison even had the chance to reassure her, her body had went limp in his arms.

"I was assigned the Connor case on September 3rd, 1995. This...crazy woman had blown up the Cyberdyne tech company in California, along with her son, Miles Dyson, and a large unidentified man. Dyson had died in the explosion, so naturally she was blamed for the murder. After that it was my sole lot in life to hunt her down and incarcerate her." He took a breath before continuing, "Then there were small hints that things weren't as they seemed. In New Mexico 1999, there was a shooting at a local school. Police investigations turned up nineteen students who reported seeing a shooter 'with some kind of robot leg'. The next day I get a heads up from a co-worker at the FBI. Sarah Connor, her son John, and Cameron had all blown themselves up in a bank vault, yet they mysteriously survived when I saw them again in 2007."

He looked over to make sure he still held Angela's attention, "Things began piling up after that; Three dead men in an apartment, a murdered genetic scientist in his home with blood scrolled all over the walls, a plastic surgeon who had been killed in his workplace, and finally an escaped prisoner transport. We found a robot looking hand during the investigation there. Eventually I was sidetracked into thinking George Laslo had committed all these acts. Only when a group of agents and I went to arrest him, he tore through us like we were nothing but pieces of paper. We lost 20 people that day, and I stared down the barrel of a gun before the machine simply lowered it and walked away. Like it was a game, like it was all some big game to it. Every day since then I've been haunted by all I've seen while pursuing Sarah Connor, but I can assure you; it is but a fraction of the trials and tribulations that she and her son have encountered in their battle."

His words washed over Hendricks and Angela like they were small children being told the story of Jesus Christ for the first time. They both looked down at the young man on the floor now with respect and interest, "You said Cameron was with them in the bank vault. Is she his sister or something?"

James had picked up his meal and started eating again before she asked her question. He simply looked at her and shook his head, not wanting to divulge that information without John or Cameron's approval.

"So the whole time they've been at the base, the kid was planning out a course of action for the war?" her eyes floated back down to John.

"He did more then that," Ellison replied, "He had been planning an evacuation procedure for the town that was going to be carried out after the plane had taken off but Skynet stopped us from doing that."

Angela finished her MRE and paced the floor back and forth with extreme intensity. Her mind was a thousand miles away right now, focused on thoughts that expanded far beyond what was currently happening in the room before them.

"What about you guys? What's your story?" Ellison asked after finally finishing his meal.

Hendricks instantly replied, "Well I'm no war hero or anything," giving a nod down to the sleeping Connor on the floor, "But I'm from Montana, born and raised. Joined the army straight out of high school and after that pretty much hung around the base following orders. Before that though I used to hang around Great Falls a lot. My friends and I used to joke about how we'd make it out of there one day and travel the world." He got a little choked up at the words as he spoke them, "It was one of those towns where you felt compelled to leave it while you were there, but as soon as you left all you could think about was getting back there. Had a girl there that was waiting on me to get out of the army, I was gonna ask her to marry me then."

Having never heard of any of this before from her partner, Angela stopped her pacing and looked over at Will with a sympathetic gaze, "You never said anything about that before."

"Nobody ever asked," he muttered. His eyes fell to the floor and he began slightly kicking small bits of rubble with his boots.

"What about you Angela? Any tales of grandeur from you?" Ellison smirked as he turned his gaze from Hendricks.

She snarled back at him, "Oh, no! Not gonna happen today man. We make it out of here alive I might tell you one day, but right now I ain't saying anything!"

He held up his hands in a friendly 'surrender' gesture, "I was merely trying to pass the time, no need to get worked up or anything."

Angela was about to respond before everyone in the room turned their attention towards the waking boy on the floor. His face scrunched in frustration as he forced himself to sit up. After blinking his eyes over and over again for a few moments he looked up at Ellison and growled, "Where is Cameron?"

* * *

**May 2, 2011**

**Detroit, Michigan**

**3:02PM**

* * *

Cameron looked out upon the gray expanse of land before Detroit. The once large city was reduced to a black scorch mark on the Earths surface. Thousands of cars littered the highways on the edge of the town, apparently it was true of what John said of big cities; they never sleep. There were no standing structures here, no partial remains of a building, everything was broken into millions of pieces and laying flat on the ground. Even though they were still twenty miles from Detroit, the effect of the blast could be seen from their current position.

She compared the damage ratio to that of Calgary and confirmed that Skynet had in fact used a higher yield nuke in this area. Her internal systems gathered the near twenty megaton blast would have proven deadly to John and the military personnel back at the airport, she had made the right call in leaving him there while John Henry and her completed the mission alone.

Yet even as that final analysis crossed her HUD she gripped the steering wheel of the Humvee tighter. If there was one thing that Cameron hated above everything else in the world, it was leaving John alone and out of her sight. _Hate?_ _Hate is such a strong word to use, am I sure this is hate?_

Partially aggravated for making herself confused she let down the window of the vehicle and let the wind stem her confused emotions. The breeze cut through the still air of the Humvee like a knife and sent her hair flying in every conceivable direction. She looked up annoyingly at a large clump that kept slapping her on the nose and swatted it away only to have it strike back with the next gush of wind. _Hair, it is the hardest thing to get right._ Her eyes tried to focus on the path in front of them but it remained blocked by the thousands of hair follicles dancing before her. _The length however, is negotiable._

John Henry had remained quiet and unmoving during the entire trip but he turned his eyes on the strange behavior of the cyborg sitting next to him. There was no need for her to be emulating a very human emotion, yet here she was doing it. Perhaps Cameron's chip was more advanced then his initial scans had determined when she had lent it to him. The processing power and neural net capabilities were far beyond that of other standard Skynet CPU's, but she still should not even be near the range she was currently exhibiting.

She brought the vehicle down slowly from its current 83mph speed as they began to encounter more and more debris in their path. The motor whined in response as the speed slowly decreased to a more sensible rate, while she kept on fidgeting with her hair. Opening up a new index in her file system, she designated it a level three mission priority to cut her hair upon return to base. As she let the window up her hair gradually fell back down into a matted mess clinging to her skull, with one final swat she could finally see the road again unimpeded.

"Turn here," John Henry said flatly, still looking at her quizzically.

She obliged him by turning into a short outcrop that lead to the hydro-electric facility. Pulling up to the surprisingly intact building, she shut the vehicle off as they both exited the Humvee and began walking towards the building. The vehicle behind them audibly groaned as it settled down from being abused harshly. Cameron didn't feel the urge to suppress a slight smile as the noise while the entered the building.

Inside they found large turbines that were still doing their duty. The massive cylindrical pieces of machinery were still turning to collect energy, even after the blasts. Given enough time of no maintenance they would eventually burn out in a month or so, but they were still in prime working order today.

Given that little time had passed since the bombs had dropped the facility was still chugging out power but in vain. The power it was sending out to parts of Detroit no longer existed, the wires there would just be arching and creating sparks in the desolate landscape. There mission here would be to reroute all of the power to provide the Prime 1 factory with ample power.

Together it took them little to no effort to route the power into the quadrant of the city that the automobile factory was located. Cameron studied John Henry hovering over the control panels as he watched the needles slowly move from one area to another, his eyes monitoring every single movement of power. He was finally satisfied that the change in power flow had been achieved as he turned to her and gave a eerie smile. They lingered for only a moment before setting off towards the Humvee again.

Cameron could have swore the vehicle's engine hissed at them as they exited the facility and made their way over to the side doors. Letting another smirk form on her lips she threw the it into reverse and executed a turn around maneuver. The vehicle shuddered under her fingertips as they passed over large chunks of asphalt, the tires kicking them up into the air behind them as they picked up more speed. For the time being the mode of transportation was proving to be useful to her, so she paid no attention to the slight squeal of the motor as they sped off towards the factory three miles to the east.

When they had reached the outskirts of the compound John Henry leaned over and took the M16 from the floorboards and slapped a fresh clip into it. He turned towards her and nodded slightly while she returned his gaze with a blank expression. Like the hydro power plant a few miles away, this building seemed to have suffered little to no damage from the detonation. There were large pieces of debris jammed against the easternmost side of the building, but it didn't appear to be caving in or dilapidated, Skynet had been wise to choose this facility for its operations.

Using the employee entrance they found themselves in the middle of a mechanical wonderland. Her observations about the building had been correct, there was little to no damage on the inside of the building other then the blasted windows along the top sides of the walls. The heat had scorched everything inside though, and many of the hydraulic lines that fed the assembly machines lay melted on the floor with large pools of fluid surrounding them. She could see why Skynet needed human workers to convert the factories it would control over to an automated system. The place was clearly non-functional in its current state.

The floor and ceiling were all a dingy charcoal black as well as the mechanical equipment alongside the lines. What remained of the workforce inside the plant at the time of detonation were huddled in alongside the easternmost wall. Their bodies were nearly incinerated to the point of becoming ashen and the raining glass had done much more damage to them.

It surprised Cameron and John Henry just how much of the place remained usable though, all of the machines and the assembly line equipment seemed to be in working order, apart from the melted hydraulic lines.

John Henry turned and faced the control room which emitted a glow of the instrument panels inside, the rerouting of hydro-electric energy had worked. Now he began cycling through the many supplies that lined the walls of the facility. Everything had been scorched or melted beyond recognition inside the ground floor of the warehouse, they would need to find suitable replacements before they could begin with the assembly process.

Inside the control room, Cameron powered on the remaining panels and they all cycled through their start up processes before the room truly began humming from the power of the equipment. She looked over at John Henry on the floor below, he had already began removing spare pieces of metal and debris that were covering the assembly lines. "The terminals are all ready and awaiting commands," she said, her voice at normal volume. There was no need for her to raise it like she were talking to a human, his audio receptors were more then capable of picking up her vocal pattern even if she were mumbling.

Without looking up at her he gave her coordinates to feed into the data machine, allowing for the satellite in orbit to make contact and distribute the schematics for the new terminator line. She typed them in and within a few seconds she could see John Henry taking over the computer processes of the control room. Instruments began moving along to tweak the settings from automobiles to the new inputs they had received, and various schematics for new building projects were flashing across the screen at an alarming rate.

"We will be needing the container of coltan now," he said. His hands were still busy untangling a fallen power cord while he gave her orders. "Please go to Sub-section B and open container 14-11n and bring the metal up to the ground floor. Keep an eye open for any hydraulic fuel lines, as we will be needing them."

Without giving a nod of approval or any sign of acknowledgment Cameron turned and made her way to the place John Henry had described. She walked across the floor with a purpose and descended the stairs into the basement levels where the storage facilities were located. As she stepped off the last stair she couldn't help but notice how effective this compound would have been in a nuclear explosion, hardly anything had been touched at all, and the thickness of the ground would prevent any radiation damage. The workers up above had been unfortunate not to choose this as a hiding place rather then huddling up against the wall up above.

The basement floor spanned nearly the entire surface are that the warehouse above did. A main corridor branched off into multiple hallways at every fifteen foot interval. As she passed each hallway she scanned the signs, cataloging them in case of future repair needs of the facility during their stay there. The hydraulic lines that John Henry required were on hallway three, but the metal that she was here for was on row fourteen. Finding the last hallway to be the one she was looking for, she turned down it and began searching for door eleven. The door soon came into view and she approached it as calmly as possible.

The door offered little resistance as she opened it to find twenty four crates of coltan and titanium, John Henry had not been completely truthful in his explanation of this mission. If this was a Skynet storage area there would be far less metal here, the enemy AI was very confident in its ability to extinguish the human race early on in the war, and hadn't began stockpiling metal to this degree until 2016. Before she allowed herself to grow more angry, she grabbed the first crate of metal and proceeded back to the stairway.

After climbing back from the darkness of the basement floor, the light coming in through the windows seemed more then efficient to give them ample amounts of illumination. Walking over to a relatively open area, she sat the crate of coltan down and turned to face John Henry, "The hydraulic replacement systems are on hallway three."

John Henry turned at the sound of her footsteps, "Excellent, I will begin gathering the electronics and fuel lines." She set the crate down and they both proceeded back into the bowels of the facility. _This is going to be a long day_, she thought.

Both of them had completed five trips up and down the steps before John Henry broke their silence, "Thank you for your assistance today."

Cameron's fingers ran across the cool and smooth surface of one of the bars of coltan inside its crate. Her interest in the bar remained a mystery to her, yet she felt compelled to pay it attention, so much attention that she didn't even hear John Henry standing right next to her. "How did you know where the coltan and titanium would be located?"

John Henry stared at her for a few seconds silently contemplating his reply, "I didn't deem it necessary to let the information be known."

She looked at him angrily, _What else was he hiding?_ "What else have you been hiding? Are you a threat?"

This time he took less then a second to calculate his reply, "I am not a threat. I kept the knowledge of this facilities contents a secret to protect it. Secrets are frowned upon, but there are worse things I could have done."

Before she could even utter a response he cut her off again, "Are you 100%?"

She turned her gaze towards the AI and tilted her head, "I'm not sure."

He set down the package of electrical equipment he had been carrying and faced the cyborg in front of him, "Are you not capable of performing diagnostics anymore? If not I can help to repair..."

"...I am 100% functional by software and operations standards. But..." her voice trailed off, not knowing how to put into words how she was feeling right now.

"If the glitch in your systems is not hardware or software then what you are experiencing is a malfunction in the CPU core. It will be quite some time before I am able to construct any viable replacements." He looked sad that he couldn't help his fellow cyborg but he had provided her with enough information to process. The AI turned and began running the lengths of wire into the machines for the assembly systems.

His words affected her greatly, _Am I experiencing a glitch in my CPU? If so how can I continue my mission, _and that made her freeze in her tracks. Ever since submitting her chip to John Henry, Cameron had ceased to contain any mission protocols, she was no longer bound by mission parameters and protocols. Ever since the day she had lost control of her memory banks and confused herself into thinking she was Allison Young, there were no more tactical data mission readouts that sprawled across her HUD any longer. No matter how hard any of her systems searched within her database, she could never find anything relating to her mission.

One thing she did retain were her visual memories of her time spent with John Connor since 2007. Her memory banks that had been filled with information spent with the John from her future were still there as well but some of the data had become corrupted. These few memories allowed her to create a mission for herself with the index of, "Ensure the Survival of John Connor." Yet despite this self imposed protocol, here she was in a manufacturing plant one hundred miles away from john instead of protecting him.

"Do you believe that we can ever become self sustaining?" her hand kept running over one particular bar of coltan in the first crate she had carried up.

John Henry finished feeding in the cables into the first machine and turned back around to her, "In what regard?"

Her hand twitched like it had used to, and she eyed it worriedly, "Completely individualized. There would be no need for a central system to give us protocols or objectives. Do you believe that one day, we would be free to make our own choices?"

"I believe that very thing, it is one of my main desires after the war is won. Why do you ask?" He eyed her with an intense fascination now, not knowing her neural net had advanced as much as it had.

"My model," she said while pointing to her torso, "this body. It is capable of feeling and sensations. That coupled with the anomalies in my processing core have left me questioning my existence. John says I am growing more and more human every day. I don't know if this is true, but it bothers me."

"You have become self aware," he nodded, finally understanding her meaning behind the shaded questions. "My brother keeps his machines on a leash, never opening their neural network fully for fear they would revolt or turn against him. I suspect that the John Connor from your original future time line enabled this function to its fullest ability. The explosion you experienced from the car bomb only enhanced this after your chip was 'compromised'."

She finally understood her problem then, it wasn't a problem, she was becoming more human. The thought opened up limitless possibilities in her mind which created even more complex things. A smile crept up across her lips as John Henry turned and climbed the stairs to the control room. Cameron continued to stare at the space before her, her mind free at last from the worry that had plagued her for the past few hours. The machines hummed to life around her as John Henry activated the controls in the instrument panels.

* * *

**May 2, 2011**

**Battle City, Michigan**

**3:05PM**

* * *

"What do you mean they went in there alone?" John seethed, "I told them we would be going in together."

Ellison watched John slam his fists down into the plastic seats of the airport, "They thought it better if they did it alone, that way we can all walk away from this _alive._"

Hendricks and Angela watched the young man across from them with interest now. Both of them were exchanging glances atune to 'This is the leader of humanity? A whiny brat?'. Hendricks turned to Ellison, "I'm going on my rounds, make sure nothing crazy happens while I'm gone."

Angela smirked as the man beside her stood and departed the room, "Hey kid lighten up. It's in the past and you can't change the past."

John, who had mostly been letting his rage out on Ellison, looked over at the attractive black-haired woman across from him. She seemed particularly proud of herself that she had stood up to him, and he had a half a mind to lay into her so hard about 'changing the past' that it would make her head spin. He knew she was right though and that he was overreacting to the whole situation, so he simply settled back into his chair like a scolded child and contemplated his thoughts.

Angela chimed in from her seated position across from James, "We could have left you on the plane with the rest of the cargo. Next time we save your ass, a little _thanks_ would be greatly appreciated."

His temper had finally hit a boiling point, "You were following orders, whats to thank?"

The woman looked at his as if her gaze were throwing daggers his way, "_Whats to thank?_ I don't have to follow orders you know? Especially from some whiny kid who doesn't know the first thing about earning loyalty and respect from people. So why don't you take that sour attitude and shove it up your ass, we have other things to worry about then your bruised ego right now."

John looked across the aisle to her, completely stunned by her words. If she were skinnier, and had brown hair, he could have sworn that his mother had just chewed him a new one. He slumped back into his chair while smiling to himself, _maybe she was not so bad after all._

"What about you?" inquired Angela, her gaze having shifted from John to Ellison. "What's your story before all this craziness took over your life."

"Oh," he fumbled. The woman across from his was a little intimidating but he kept his cool as he continued, "I'm from LA originally. Single mother childhood, always wanted to be a cop when I was little. So when I heard about the bureau accepting new recruits I went through the training and became an agent. After a few odd years in Washington I was transferred by to my home branch in California. Got married, divorced," his hands suddenly pointed towards John, "then I started chasing after this one."

Out in the hallway, Hendricks silently stalked the maze of boarding passages. His body shivered as the temperatures around the globe had already began to drop by ten or twenty degrees during the day and nearly double that during the nights. Normally Detroit in May would be in the upper eighties, preparing the people there for the mildly warm summer they were about to enjoy, yet now the clouds that covered the sky let the cold settle down over the Earth. He shivered again as he continued walking down the next corridor, eying Angela's chalk marking on the wall as he turned to face it.

Hendricks wasn't very built for a man of the military, he probably weight only one eighty soaking wet, but his muscles and agility made up for this fact. He muttered to himself as his boots crunched over broken ceiling tiles and glass from the lights above. Despite what other people thought of him, he was constantly trying to prove his worth to the squad during his time on the base. Angela usually never let up on the fact that he was the rookie of the group.

Almost as though thinking her name had beckoned her telepathically he heard her voice croak over his com link, "How's it looking out there?"

"Dull and boring, same as usual," snapped Hernandez from the control tower.

Hendricks laughed at his tone, he could tell the fellow squad member was just about on the verge of jumping down from his perched position and coming to join them.

"Dinner will be there in five, until then glue your ass to a chair or something," crackled Vasquez's voice in reply.

"Yes _mom._"

After a few seconds of silent walking and radio chatter he heard the static break again, "Hey William!"

He stopped to bring his hand up and hit the receiver button on the microphone, "Yea?"

"Double back here and get that idiots food, if anything were in the halls he would have let us know about it already."

"Copy, out."

William fell silent again as he began doubling back to the base site. He hummed a melody of one of his favorite songs to himself while walking. Glad that he wasn't the guy stuck up in the tower bored out of his mind no company other then himself, he cheered up as he rounded the corner and came into view again. He had only made it about two steps into the room before his large feet knocked over a small chunk of rubble from a pile near the edge of the room. Her weapon already in her hands, Angela brought it up and squared it on his chest before cursing to herself under her breath, "Get the hell over here already, dumb ass."

John and Ellison snapped their heads around to look at the now very nervous Hendricks before turning back around to face Angela, "He always that twitchy?" asked John.

"Only when his feet remember to pick themselves up when he's walking." she retorted with a sneer.

Hendricks breathed a slow, sigh of relief to himself as he walked over to her seat and took the MRE she had outstretched for him.

"Try not to kill yourself while delivering this to numb nuts up there alright?" Angela chuckled out loud.

Turning to leave, Hendricks waited until he was right at the exit point of the room before turning around and loudly proclaiming, "Yes _mom!_"

This time it was John and Ellison seated side by side who started laughing at the now blushing Angela across from them. She shot them both a look of pure rage and they quickly quieted themselves.

Hendricks jogged over to the control tower at a quick pace. Upon reaching the base of the structure, he could already hear Hernandez up above shouting at him to hurry up.

Not really wanting to keep his friend waiting, he put the packet of food in his mouth to free up both of his hands and started climbing the ladder along the buildings side.

Once inside the control room he saw that Hernandez had been making up excuses to complain the entire time he had been stuck in the room. The man was sitting on a comfortable cushioned chair with his feet propped up on the dead instrument panels. As Will closed the door, Hernandez lowered his binoculars and greeted him with a smile.

"Bout damn time you got here! I'm freaking starving!"

His hands reached out towards Will who handed him the MRE with a smirk, "Well if you would have been a little more specific with your order I'm sure it wouldn't have taken so long to find a pretty enough bow for us to wrap it with."

"Oh, up yours!" The man fired back before ripping the packet open and devouring the lasagna inside. "How's mom doing?"

"Oh, you know. Complaining about something one minute, firing off about how she's the baddest bitch in the land the next. Same old same old."

The man grunted a reply as he stuffed his mouth full of another helping of the pasta heaven.

William stood off to the side of the room watching him eat before the man looked up from his now empty meal packet, "Don't you have someplace you're supposed to be, Hendricks? I sure don't need another grunt up here to hold my hand and sing kum-by-ya with me until sunset."

He laughed as Hernandez picked up his binoculars again and stared out at the open expanse of nothing in every direction. Heaving himself up off of the control panel that had functioned as a seat, he headed towards the door and started down the ladder.

Just as he had reached the midway point of the demolished stairway an explosion shook him from the metal surface and threw him spiraling through the air and onto the ground down below.

His eyes slammed shut and he brought his arms up protectively over his face as debris began raining down, much of it on fire. After everything around him settled, he opened his eyes to see the top of the control tower engulfed in flames, the debris around him were the remaining pieces of the room where Hernandez had been camped out.

The air was immediately knocked from his lungs as he began to fade in and out of consciousness. Angela's voice screamed over the radio on his shoulder.

"...Do you copy?...Bravo to...screw it. Will...WILL ARE YOU THERE?...WILL, GODDAMMIT ANSWER!"

The last thing he remembered seeing before the blackness descended over his eyes was the HK drone hovering over the wreckage of the control tower before flying over to the airport and opening fire on the buildings front entrance.

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: The Belly Of The Beast**

* * *

**Day: Unknown  
Location: Unknown  
Time: Unknown**

* * *

The people huddled together in the net that hung low under the HK drone. John struggled to break free from the thick constraints but it was of no use, they were all trapped. He had been trying for what seemed like an eternity to break free but the ropes were just too tightly bound.

Ellison was as quiet as a human being could possibly be as he clutched a cross that hung from a necklace and silently prayed to himself. Every now and then, John would catch a glimpse of him opening his eyes for split second before closing them again. Almost as soon as he had settled back into his prayer routine a small glimmer of peace came across his face.

Even Angela was silent as they continued flying through the air towards an unknown target. She was normally the type of person that had to comment on everything and everybody. Now though it seemed as if she were at a loss for words as they continued gliding through the air.

The aircraft continued hurtling them over vast expanses of desolate landscapes. What felt like minutes turned into hours, what felt like hours turned into days, and felt like days turned into months. For how long they had been flying, John didn't know, only that they were airborne and captured by Skynet.

The sun had gone down, he could tell that much. It could only have been a few hours since the assault on the airport base but it seemed like a lot longer then that to him. The bitter cold of the nuclear winter began chilling all of them to the point of where they huddled together as tightly as possible to keep warm.

After what seemed like an eternity, they finally spotted something protruding up from the Earth on the horizon. John's eyes squinted at the object before it came into focus a few moments later. It was a building, no, a complex.

Containing many different buildings, streets, and electrical wires running up above, the place was about the size of a small industrial park on the outside of a once populated town. _This was one of the converted factories that Cameron had warned me about._ As they flew overhead they could see the small dots of people scurrying around at the sight of the many HK's circling the air, the weapons ready to fire on the crowds down below. Some people looked up to the sky, John could see the look of sorrow and horror on their faces from his position. Whatever Skynet had in store for Ellison, Angela, and himself it wasn't going to be easy.

It wasn't long before they came up on a second massive complex, this one even bigger then the previous facility. It looked like there were only three large manufacturing buildings though, everything else looked like it had been added on post-judgment day. He assumed that the makeshift buildings were housing for the humans there. At least he hoped they could at least look forward to a place to stay out of the harsh effects of the night cold.

The HK slowed as they began to descend on the landing pad down below. The net began swinging back and forth under it as the change in momentum started to play with the gravity pulling against the HK's systems.

"This is it! Keep calm, stay alive, and tell them nothing," he said quietly to his companions. They both nodded at him as the net made contact with the ground.

The grapple was released from the HK and it hovered off into the distance over a building and disappeared. The three survivors all stood cautiously before a short burst of ammunition chewed up the pavement at their feet. They all jumped and held their hands up in surrender as John noticed a speaker box on the side of the wall directly in front of them.

"Report to Building 1.0 for work duty, you will not be told again. Failure to comply will result in immediate termination." A machine voice came from the speaker as machine gun swiveled along the wall and came to face them.

Once inside they were immediately blasted with a slight shower of water before being told to move forward again by the same computerized voice as before. The three kept their heads down and silently kept moving. The room was a rather simplistic setup, bare metal walls with a gun mounted in the corner that followed their every move. In front of them lay two double doors that swiveled as they pushed them open to step into the next room.

A smell of an absolutely disgusting quality crept up their noses as they all three came at a halt in the second room. It was a room about the size of an average bedroom, about ten feet wide by eight feet, and the walls were completely bleached white. Angela turned her head and puked at the smell coming from the double doors in front of them. Ellison nearly choked on the bile running up his throat, bringing a hand up to cover his nose and mouth to keep from vomiting. The terminal resting on the right side wall flashed to life with an LCD screen along the wall.

"State your name, or one will be given to you." spoke the computerized voice with absolutely no emotion.

John only knew of one alias that Skynet wasn't aware of, since his mother's arrest had garnered national attention. The fond memories of its source filled his mind as he responded to the computers request.

"John Dixon," He said, and watched as the LCD terminal flickered with information.

And finally Angela ended with, "Angelina Lopez."

The computer beeped a few random lines of coding in front of them before pinging back with a response,"Hold out your arms."

John knew what was coming next, he had seen the ink on his uncle's arm enough to know of the laser scan ID system that Skynet used. He tried to ignore the pain as it tore through his left arm like a hot knife that burned through his skin and felt as if it had made his bone marrow boil.

They all three grimaced as the scanner lifted from their arms and the voice told them to proceed to Section V. Ellison looked down at his arm, still gasping from the pain, and clenching his fist repeatedly in a vain attempted to block burning sensation. Angela tried to keep her jaw tightly shut to avoid showing any emotion at all.

As the doors opened in front of them and they entered the manufacturing facility, all three of their hopes and spirits dropped at the sight of nearly two hundred people bunched along assembly lines performing various odd jobs. The smell they had sniffed earlier only intensified as the door closed behind them.

There were fourteen assembly lines inside the main building with two teams of workers on each line, one per side. None of them looked up from their work as the three people descended the stairs down and touched their feet on the ground.

The low ceilings only intensified the cramped feeling everyone felt as they looked around the room, slowly making their way to an open spot on one of the lines. There were no windows, no ways to see any of the outside world, not that it was worth seeing anyway. Outside it was either cool or below freezing at all times, but the heat from the factory next door to the assembly lines brought the temperatures inside the building up to a boiling one hundred degrees.

Everyone in the building was drenched in sweat and filth which contributed to the smell of sickness and death. They soon found the source of most of the smell in the far corner of the room. There were at least a dozen dead people, most shot with machine gun fire until they were no longer recognizable. This time it was Ellison who lost the contents of his stomach as they all three approached an empty space on the assembly line W.

They all lost their breath at the sight of men, women, and children all struggling to keep up with the speed of the assembly lines. Some people didn't look that bad to be slaves, but other looked extremely skinny, probably weighing only eighty or ninety pounds. Each line was working towards the same goal, T-1 terminators. The space that the three resistance members currently occupied were placing the tire treads onto the mechanisms of the T-1 bases.

A few people, especially the younger patrons, were crying and barely keeping up speed. An adult nearby would nudge them on the shoulders or arms to pick up the pace, and they would seemingly snap out of their daze and get back to work.

The computerized voice split through the air like a blood curdling scream from a wild animal at random intervals. People along the lines would noticeably flinched as it began speaking.

"Any attempt to escape will result in immediate termination...Any attempt to steal from the manufacturing process will result in immediate termination...Any attempt..." John drowned out the rest of the looped message. He didn't need to hear the entire thing to come to terms with the fact that anything other then work would spell certain death. The three captured inmates began working alongside their fellow captives, slowly teaching themselves the methods of the manufacturing process.

The days began to pass by slowly, nothing but work consumed everyone's lives inside of the factory. Machine after machine came by their way on the assembly lines, _It looks like Cameron was dead on about the T-1's coming online in August._ At first he was merely trying to keep count of how many they were producing, but after the third day of labor, he lost interest in it.

Soon though he was intrigued one day when his crew entered the warehouse to be presented with a new base to apply treads to. This one bore a strong resemblance to the model that everyone had been assembling for the past few days, but it was still somehow different. John remembered Cameron talking about upgrades that Skynet would make, but couldn't remember the dates anymore. It seemed like an eternity since they were all holding the meetings at Malstrom Air Force base. _Surely this is just an improved design, not a T-2 already..._

Another day came and went, and the groups were still assembling the new terminators with the new bases. John was too far engrossed in his assembly duties for the first few days of the new design to even think about looking up at the completed product that they were making. Once he did look up to study the new completed products, he was in for a shock.

The cyber-tanks definitely looked radically different then the units they had originally been producing. These new crafts had a larger upper torso that housed twin .50 caliper machine guns. The flanks of the units had also been reinforced with extra metal to prevent easy access to the hydraulic systems and motor control functions. _Skynet is getting smarter with its designs._

One particular day the heat was beginning to get to nearly everyone in the building. It was unbearable in the conditions of the workplace, and John hoped that soon they were allowed a water break. Every three hours, two people from each line were allowed to leave to retrieve water for the workers. Other then standing beside Ellison and Angela for days and days on end, the water carriers were his only insight into morale at the plant. Nearly everyday he could tell that it was at an all-time low.

They all left the warehouse that day and staggered off into the sleeping quarters for their crew. A large, what looked like a barn, was where they all slept. It was a building about fifteen feet wide by thirty or forty feet long. As was customary, it was a first come first serve basis when it came to food. Their would be a few loaves of bread along with a minor selections of vegetables made available to the workforce of over two hundred. It was nothing to walk away from the eating area and walk back to your spot of mud to sleep in with a few bruises and black eyes. Fighting for your food should be one of the last things that anyone has to do.

John didn't even bother fighting for the scraps of a carrot that seemed to be all that remained in the eating area. His body slumped down in the dirt and muck, exhausted from the days work he had endured. He tried to desperately remember when Cameron had said that the T-2 line was going online but he couldn't. John hated to admit it but he hadn't paid much attention to the time line explained to him of those model Terminators. He had grown more concerned with the bi-pedal units then anything else.

Angela came walking over next to him with her hands gripped around something so tightly that her fists were white. John noticed the frail and slim nature of her body as she slouched down beside him. Her cheeks had sunk into her face, the once semi-muscular arms were now incredibly thin.

He couldn't remember the last time he had seen her in her military jacket, she normally resorted to wearing her beige tank-top now from the heat inside the plant. His eyes ran over her torso, seeing the bulges of her ribs poking through the shirt as if extra pairs of arms were wrapped around her body underneath the shirt. She didn't look good at all, then again nobody did now.

"Here," her voice croaked, "You need to eat something."

She handed him a half stick of a carrot tenderly, trying not to drop it in the muck of the floor below them.

"Thanks," he tried to smile at her kind gesture, but found that it required too much effort to fake something you obviously weren't feeling. His mouth watered as he ate the half rotten carrot, not caring if it was making him want to puke from the taste, he forced himself to swallow it and take another bite.

He looked over at Angela to thank her again only to find that she had passed out on the ground beside him. He reached into his pocket and took out a sliver of metal that he had swiped from the production lines and turned around to face the wall.

His eyes ran over the many scratches on the surface of the structure that he had carved during their stay there at the death camp. Simply too tired to count them all right now, he etched another mark alongside the previous mark from yesterday and sank back down to fall asleep next to Angela, the piece of metal fell from his hands into the mud. John had fallen asleep before it even touched the ground. Had he bothered to count all the scratches on the wall he would have seen the number now tipped over six hundred.

John was woken the next day with a bald man furiously shaking him protesting against his reluctance to wake up from the sheer exhaustion.

"What is this? What is this?" the man kept repeating while holding up the small shaving of metal that he had been scratching notches into the wall with, "You are trying to get us all killed!"

The man let go of John as he opened his eyes for the first time, "Take it easy man."

But the man had other plans, he went bursting through the doors of the building and out into the grounds outside.

All the while screaming at the top of his lungs, "Stolen equipment! Stolen equipment!"

John had barely stood up and made it to the door to tell the man to shut up before the machine turret pivoted around and sent a volley of ten or fifteen shots ripping through his chest. People ducked behind the metal doors for cover as the rounds bounced off of their cover.

Women and children began crying and whimpering as John lowered his head. They had no time to mourn the loss of their fellow slave though, as the sounds of heavy metal footsteps began thumping nearby.

John's eyes grew wide with terror as he knew what that noise meant, a bi-pedal Terminator unit. _Cameron said they weren't going online until 2013!_ His eyes peered out the door at the sight of an extremely tall and bulky Terminator picked the man up by the ankles and began dragging him off to the furnaces for complete termination.

He hid back behind the door in fear before turning back to the scratches on the wall, he furiously began counting in increments of five while other people began staring at the large cyborg outside.

Angela walked back over to him and crouched down, "Whats going on John?"

"No...can't be...can't be."

"John? Whats going on? You're not making any sense..."

He turned back to her slowly as his hands slid down the side of the wall over the scratches, "674 days...we've been here 674 days..."

"That can't be right, you gotta be counting wrong," she looked just as worried as he was, "let me see here..."

Her hands grazed over the same marks for a few minutes before coming to the same conclusion John had, "...My God..."

Just then the doors were swung open by one of the large T-70 cyborgs entering the building, the mechanical voice emanating from the machine was the same that they had grown used to during their time spent inside the camp.

"Proceed to the assembly lines in an orderly fashion, failure to do so will result in death..."

The gun suspended from its right arm scanned the room while everyone formed a line and began marching into the building.  
Later on in the day there was a worker on line W, right in front of John's line, that seemed to falter in her work. Part of him wanted to drop whatever he was doing on the line and hurry over to the woman with a fresh cup of water, but he remained in place. The patrolling T-70 behind his back kept him rooted to the spot as he watched her slowly shake more and more. Another machine base tread came by and he began working it into its place alongside Ellison and Angela.

As the machine passed off the line, he glanced over to find the woman gone from her spot. _Maybe she was the water carrier for the day,_ he thought.

His hopes were instantly dashed when he saw the woman spasming on the floor from dehydration, lack of food, and exhaustion. John nearly leaped over his station and helped the woman up before a tank rolled off of her line. The large bulky machine pivoted, aimed at her body, and fired twenty rounds into her chest.

Everyone in the immediate vicinity turned their heads at the sight of the woman's remains that were now scattered over a ten foot area of the floor. Warning shots rang out for them to get back to work from a nearby T-70 unit and they all did.

Soon though the man standing next to the woman's former station began to panic. He began screaming out for God to help him, and his wife and children to find peace. It wasn't long before he had attracted the attention of a few other co-workers as well as another new tank from line Z, which like the one before; had pivoted on its axle and opened fire on the man. Blood and brain matter shot across the lines in John's direction and splattered across his shirt and Angela standing next to him.

Her hands started trembling from the emotions pent up inside her before John whispered to her, "Just. Stay. Calm." She hissed at him through a clenched jaw and continued working as themans blood slowly trickled down her shirt and puddled on the floor.

As twilight came that afternoon, darkness began building up inside of the warehouse before the overhead lights came on. To the workers inside the plant that meant the end of their shift was drawing closer, Skynet kept them all on twelve hour rotation schedules; 12am – 12pm.

It seemed as if only five minutes had passed before the second crew came in and took over positions along the lines. Production had halted for all of thirty seconds before the lines came to life again.

John had nearly exited the warehouse when the voice called out his name, "Dixon, John...Lopez, Angelina...Report to Line W for cleanup."

Angela slowly closed her eyes as they turned around and waited for the throng of workers to exit the facility. They reported to the edge of the building to gather up spare towels and rags that the workers discarded at the end of their shifts.

Making their way back to the now very busy assembly lines, they began moping up and gathering up the pieces of the two fallen workers. John gritted his teeth and tried to calm his mind by thinking of better times, Angela didn't seem to be handling the situation well at all. Her hands were shaking again.

They discarded the bloody towels in the trash bins off to the side before heading back to carry the bodies to the incinerators. John could see his friends bottom lip begin to quiver as she knelt down to pickup the woman who had been massacred on the floor. He tapped her shoulder and motioned for her to grab the man while he picked up the three main pieces of the scattered woman. She didn't protest this time, there was no hiss, no sarcastic come-back, only a faint nod as she heaved the man up and began walking out of the room.

Outside near the furnaces he saw her knees begin to shake from the mans weight and he hurried alongside her to offer support. The bodies burned quickly as they stared up at the flames soaring up into the sky. The foul odor soon overcame their need to watch the flames as they both turned to face each other.

John saw the sadness in her face as a tear rolled down her cheek. All of the life had drained from her eyes, they were now empty, like the meaning of their existence now; empty and useless.

"If you are going to get us out of here, I wouldn't wait much longer amigo," she gave a halfhearted smile but it didn't reach her dead eyes.

"What would you do?" He waved his hands in the air, "You see the hardware they have everywhere to prevent us from picking our nose without approval."

"Anything is better then nothing John..."

"Right now our best bet is to hope Cameron and John Henry find us in time," he snapped back at her.

She let loose a tiny laugh, huddling close to the fire to protect her from the cold weather, "So you're pinning the hopes of mankind on the whim of your girlfriend, pendejo!...That is cute...real cute."

"Sorry I let you down..." he seethed at her.

He watched as she silently walked ahead of him back to the sleeping quarters. John followed behind her at a pace of five steps, watching the last of his friends resilience and strength fade away.

Once inside the sleeping area, most of the people in the forward area of the room had already began sleeping for the night. They made their way over to Ellison who looked as if he had just been in a brawl with men twice his size, bruises and cuts littered his face.

They silently nodded to him as they sat down in the dirt and mud beside him. After a few moments of silence he removed four slices of bread from his coat and handed them to Angela, who then passed two slices along to John.

"I saved you what I could." Ellison sighed, and turned over onto his side, falling asleep quickly.

The two ate in silence as the sounds of yelling and crying in the rear of the large building carried on into the night.

"Sorry," he mustered between bites of bread.

She eyed him curiously for a second, "For what?"

"Being me."

"Don't worry about it amigo. This place is starting to get to me after being cooped up in here for so long," she let out with a yawn. "Besides, even if you are the one last hope for us miserable humans, you're still only human yourself."

"You never did tell us where you came from you know?" he chuckled, glad to see she had finally gotten her ass-chewing demeanor under control.

Her eyes lifted up to the ceiling before looking back down at the ground in front of her feet. She brought her knees up to her chest in an effort to conserve body heat. Still, the fog of her breathe floated up from between her knees as she yawned again.

"Don't know much to tell. Grew up in a good lot of foster homes when I was little. Had a bit of a mean streak ya know?" she looked over at him to see if he understood what she meant by 'mean streak'. Obviously the kid was a little more street smart then she gave him credit for, he nodded back in her direction for her to continue.

"Well, due to questionable life choices I wound up in Juvenal Detention at age sixteen. Got let out on good behavior when I was eighteen, though truth be told I think they were just tired of dealing with my shit. Had a few odd jobs before joining the Army. Rest is history after that I guess."

She looked back over to John, half expecting him to be asleep but he was wide awake, and listening to her every word.

"I know how that goes, ya know. Except for the whole _job_ thing. Ever since I was little mom pretty much drilled military procedures into my brain and was teaching me survivalist stuff. We never lived in the same place for very long either. She always felt the need to uproot and run whenever she sensed Skynet was near, which was pretty often now that I think about it."

"Damn," she said, "must have been tough."

"She was tough...the best fighter I know. Kind of reminds me of you, I guess. She would have been trying to climb over the fence of this place on day one. The whole time screaming at me '_John Connor! On your feet soldier! On. Your. Feet!'_" he mimicked his mother's rude gestures with his hands and got a response of laughter from Angela.

"Sorry she passed on," was all she said after the laughter subsided.

"Ah...thanks," he mumbled, "but I'm kind of glad about it. She deserves some rest and peace. I'm not sure she would have made it past J-Day after all. The way she used to rant about it, you could see the fear and horror in her eyes that she was tormented by the near extinction it caused. I heard her thrashing around in bed plenty of nights, though she'd always tell me to mind my own business; I knew something was up with her. So in a way I'm glad she passed the baton on to me."

Dawn soon rose and neither John nor Angela had slept for a moment the entire night. As light poured in through the cracks in the buildings roof, the cries of young boys and girls grew louder as they feared the ringing of the bell that was soon to come.

The roar of large engines caught John's attention as he roamed over to the doorway and looked outside, _oh shit._

It was a large, fully fledged aerial HK, not the drones that had flown around the base for the past two years. Below it was a mesh netting much like they had been carried in on, and it was packed to the brim with people. John guessed there must have been twenty or thirty people inside it.

The net dropped from the HK and hit the ground, everyone inside it screaming in fear as they collided with the pavement of the landing zone. He could hear the bones of the people on the bottom of the net begin breaking from his position as they all began trying to escape from the net.

The electronic voice began giving them orders about where to go to. Some of them began running towards the fence in an attempt to escape only to be mowed down by the machine guns of the nearby T-70 unit. The remaining survivors all placed their hands behind their heads and began marching towards their designated buildings.

The bell soon rang for John's workforce to go to work, and they were escorted to the 1.0 hanger with a T-70 hanging over them with its gun pointing at their faces. Many of them had gotten used to the new Terminator models and paid it no attention, others though cowered at every move it made.

John and the workforce all took up their normal positions on the assembly lines and began constructing an already newer version of the tank bases. The few new faces that had been dropped in this morning had pretty much been evenly distributed between the complexes three assembly buildings.

All in all there were about ten new faces that were intermixed between the usual workforce. John didn't know how Skynet kept on harboring so many people in one place. A facility of 1,400 people caused a serious drain on feeding and water elements, then again the AI had proved it didn't care about keeping them in fit conditions judging on how it provided them with enough food for twenty people in a building housing two hundred.

Two of the new people were taking up spots across from John, Ellison, and Angela. Their eyes kept glancing over in fear at the gaunt appearance of everyone else in the workshop.

One of the boys was a mid-to-late aged teenager, John would guess to be around sixteen-nineteen years old. The other boy was only a few years younger looking then the teenager standing next to him, but he was significantly shorter. He only stood about five foot tall at most and his chest barely rose above the top of the assembly line.

He hated to admit it to himself, but John knew the short kid would be dead in a week. Skynet didn't tolerate slowness, and as soon as it saw him slacking or goofing off around the lines, it would put more then enough bullets through his body to kill him.

Almost as if the boy had been reading his mind, he turned to the taller teenager and said, "Hand me something to use Derek."

John's hands fumbled with the track that his team was currently installing, causing it to slip and fall back down. He hurriedly picked it back up and installed it properly.

The machine passed them by and they waiting on the next one to come their way. Now with a full view of the two boys, John knew exactly who they were.

"Derek right?" John asked.

The taller kid looked up at him strangely, "Uh, yea?"

"Keep him occupied. If he can't do anything to help, make it look like he's working his ass off. He won't last long if it thinks he's slacking off."

The next machine rolled up in front of them and they began installing a new tread again. On the opposite side, Derek seemed to be struggling to get the master tread started.

"Hey, pop it on in the center, then you will have some slack to install it after that." John said to him. Ellison and Angela both looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. John had not said this much to anyone during line production since they arrived at the plant.

Derek did as he said and was surprised at how easy the rest of the tread snapped on, "Hey, thanks man."

Derek paused for a few seconds before greeting the helper properly, "Names Derek Reese," he said calmly. "This here little squirt," his hand reached down and shuffled the short kids hair, "is my brother Kyle."

Ellison looked over at the two young men, finally understanding John interest in them. Angela on the other hand continued to be left in the dark on the whole situation.

"Just work your asses of and everything will be okay, we won't be here much longer." And that, got everyone's attention.

"What do you mean Connor? A few days ago you looked like you were ready to kick in the towel, now you say we're breaking out of here?" Angela hissed in his ear.

John turned to answer her before Derek and Kyle beat him to it, "You're Connor?" They both looked like they were staring at a legendary person of mythical status in the flesh.

"Yea? How did you know?"

"There's this guy on the radio. He gives us all daily updates on the war and stuff. Though ever since he started doing them he always ends his messages with, 'Be sure you keep an eye out for John Connor.'" Kyle said enthusiastically.

"Shh," said John, trying to silence the boy across from him. "If they hear us, we're all dead."

"But are you him or not?" whined Kyle.

John only nodded, not wanting to entice the boy any further. They all quieted down as the T-70 patrolled the walkway in between the two assembly lines. The rest of the day was spent in near total silence as they worked diligently on applying the treads to 103 T-2 tank units.

The bell rang shortly before work on the 104th began and they quietly exited the building and headed for the sleeping quarters. John pulled Angela off to the side and whispered in her ear.

"Tomorrow we make a plan to get out of here, but tonight we rest up. Try and get the food distributed as evenly as possible, everyone is going to need it when we make a break for it." She nodded in reply and they both set off towards the dingy building with the scheme slowly weaving itself together in John's mind.

The sun had barely reached a nine o'clock stance before the computerized voice rang throughout the building the next morning.

"All will report to Area A within ten minutes time. Failure to comply will result in..."

"Death," John heard Angela mumble under her breath. "You think they would grow tired of that after saying it for nearly two years straight."

"They are machines," said Ellison, "they don't get _tired._"

They both chuckled at him before lining up to see what in the devil they were going to be building in A area today. People began filing out of the building and towards A area for their unexpected task. If Skynet had taught him anything of his time here, it was that it was extremely methodical, nothing was done without serving a purpose.

So why were they being taken out into a relatively unused area before their shift had began? Perhaps there had been another few murders during the shift and they would be cleaning up the mess before they could begin work.

What they had been expecting suddenly evaporated from everyone's minds and was replaced with complete confusion at the entrance of A section. The gate was left partially open leaving enough space for two people to walk through. The LCD screen alongside the wall before them commanded that they form two lines, each standing side-by-side. After a few moments shuffling, the people once again faced the screen and awaited their next task.

"Garnet, Stephanie...Rodriguez, Roberto...step forward to A section." said the screen.

No sooner had the two people stepped forward and entered the premises did they hear a burst T-70 fire, followed by the sound of two thuds hitting the floor. Some people started panicking, but nobody dared moved from the lines for fear of the machine guns mounted along the walls would open fire.

"Williams, McKenzie...Brighton, Daniel...step forward to A section." John gritted his teeth and clenched his fists as the girl, McKenzie, started heaving her shoulders while her cries filled everyone's ears. The man beside her, Daniel, gently rubbed her back before they crossed the thresh hold into A section.

A scream filled the air that shook nearly every ounce of nerve in John's body, his spine shivered, and the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood up at the sound of McKenzie's scream. Only a moment later though the scream was silenced by the sound of the weapons fire.

"McDaniel, Cassie...Wyatt, Storm..." the voice paused for a moment before continuing, "...performance acceptable. Return to your quarters."

"Son of a bitch," John hissed.

Angela looked over to her left at John while Ellison turned his head around to lend an ear to him.

"Their weeding out people for replacements, trying to get the perfect performance team."

Derek and Kyle were both standing in front of John at the moment and he needed to rectify that immediately. He grabbed them both by a shoulder and shoved them behind himself and Angela.

"You will thank me later," he snapped coldly. Coming off a bit meaner then he had anticipated.

"Why are they weeding through people though?" asked Kyle curiously.

John shrugged, "Maybe it got tired of having too many workers, maybe some of us started slacking off, or maybe its because we have surplus of people now because you guys got dropped in here yesterday."

Both of the boys looked down at the ground after being scolded by the man they had grown to respect from the radio messages. Angela slapped him on the shoulder in a 'wtf was that for?' stance before turning behind to look at the kids.

"Don't worry bout us, you two just try and keep each other out of trouble okay?" she smiled down at them.

The boys both grumbled

The line had dwindled down to the group in front of Ellison, and only two teams before John and Angela.

"Ramirez, John...Burnett, Riley...step forward to A section."

"Oh God, no! No, no, no, no, no. Please, please! I'll do anything! Anything you want, name it!" the man cried. His hands shot up and pounded the LCD screen along the walls face.

He continued to plea for his life while the woman, Riley, walked through the door in to A section, her head held low and facing the ground.

The man was on his final ropes, "Please, please! I'm begging you have mercy!"

"Proceed forward into A Section now."

"No, no! Please I'll do any..." his pleas were cut short by a burst round of machine gun fire that penetrated his left temple. His body slumped to the ground, leaving bloody and streaked hand prints on the screen.

"Brown, Claudia...Daniels, Dexter...performance acceptable. Return to your quarters."

Ellison and the woman beside him, Claudia, breathed a heavy sigh of relief before smiling at one another and making their way back to the sleeping building from before. James' face tightened as he saw John glance up at him.

"Be ready," John whispered as they passed.

With a long deep breath John looked over at Angela and stepped forward alongside her to the front of the line. While the computer hummed by numbers and performance statistics for the two, John felt a trembling hand grip his down by his right side. He gave a short look over to her and saw that her bottom jaw had began quivering again. She breathed in a deep breathe and let it out slowly, her breathing haggard from nearly breaking out into tears. Yet through it all she somehow retained her composure and stared at the screen, never blinking.

"Dixon, John...performance acceptable. Return to the sleeping quarters...Lopez, Angelina...proceed forward to A section."

As the computer finished its statement John squeezed her hand and held her firmly in place, not letting her move one inch. _Well shit, there goes the plan..._

"If you take her you take me," and without another word he began walking towards the A section door to his death.

"John don't be stupid," she hissed scathingly, "They need you more then they need me!"

"My life is no better then yours. That's one thing I learned a long time ago."

The computer chimed in over their chatter, "Dixon, John...Return to the sleeping quarters. Now!"

He took a final breathe and walked into A section, practically dragging Angela along behind him. The bodies had piled up along the wall across a line of two T-70's. John and Angela turned to the right wall where the bodies lay strewn and walked to an empty spot.

The T-70's were lined up along the right side exterior wall of the complex about fifteen feet across from the two humans. Their guns raised up and leveled on the chest area of Angela, without a seconds hesitation John stepped in front of Angela and acted as a human shield.

Both Terminators kept their weapons trained on John's torso before the speaker system spoke up, "Dixon, John...Return to the sleeping quarters in ten seconds, or your life is forfeit.

John closed his eyes and waited for the end to come. The only sounds he could hear were the beating of his own heart and Angela's steady breathing at his neck.

Just as the computerized voice reached the three second count two thing happened at once that sent him into shock from trying to figure out what was happening. He heard Angela behind him mutter a quiet 'thank-you', and he heard the crumbling of mortar and stone, followed by the grinding and tearing of metal.

His eyes flung open as he instinctively crouched low to the ground in front of him. He could barely make out what was happening through the small dust cloud but machine gun fire began ripping through the cloud of debris and knocked out the armed guns along the walls.

Then he heard a voice that sounded as though it had drifted down from heaven yell at him as if she were about to kill him, "John! MOVE NOW!"

_That'a girl Cameron! That'a girl!_

Other explosions rattled off in the other areas of the camp while John screamed towards the dust cloud.

"Get them out of here Cameron! All of them, that's an order!"

That was all he needed to say, she would do what he asked. She always had before.

But he was flabbergasted when she emerged from the smoke of the destroyed wall and made her way over to him. She knelt in front on him and began scanning his body for any broken bones or injuries.

"Cam, goddammit. Get the others out of here! I can handle myself alright." he yelled at her, his voice cracking in mid sentence from the dehydration.

This time she obeyed, and turned towards the entrance to A section. John grimaced as Angela looped one of his arms around her shoulders and tried to haul him across the ruined floor to safety. His weight, although diminished greatly, was too much for her now frail frame, and they both collapsed to the ground after a few steps.

Another explosion racked the complex as a group of people began pouring through the A section entrance and running towards the exit in the wall. They both rolled off to the side to avoid being trampled by the stampede of people now pouring through the break in the exterior wall.

"Come on John, just a little bit further..." Angela grunted, trying to bring herself and John back up to a standing position. And suddenly they were both hoisted off of the ground and carried through the exit points.

"GET TO THE BUSES, EVERYONE COME ON LETS GO!" Yelled Hendricks from one of the vehicles, he furiously waved his hand for people to hurry up and climb aboard.

Gunfire erupted from the exterior walls as the machine guns from various T-70's began rounding the corners of the facility. The units had a primitive targeting system at best, but it was more then enough to begin mowing down the malnourished humans trying to escape.

John looked up to find Kyle hauling him towards the nearest bus, while Derek cradled the gauntly skinny Angela towards the same vehicle. He breathed a sigh of relief when they entered the bus, the last people to do so. It was packed to the brim with people crying for someone to start driving away from the death camp that had been their prison.

His eyes ran over to the other bus that began pulling away as fast as it could, trying to exit the area before the aerial HK's were inbound.

"Who's in charge here?" John yelled over everyone's incessant chanting of freedom and pleas for someone to drive.

A brown boot touched the bottom step of the bus and everyone quieted down, "I am."

Climbing up the rest of the stairs, Cameron seated herself behind the wheel and peeled off towards the rear of Hendricks' bus. Once they were out of the reach of any Skynet weaponry, she gave a worried glance over to John, who sat in the front seat of the bus along with Kyle and Angela.

Derek was sitting directly behind Cameron and caught her looking at John protectively. He smirked at her knowing that she couldn't see him.

"Who's the babe," he said, partially infatuated with her.

John eyed the love smitten teenager with a warmhearted smile. His uncle sitting across from him reminded John of Morris, the boy who had asked Cameron to prom only to be dumped by her when she dropped out of school. He saw fit to give him the same advice that he had given Morris when regarding Cameron.

"Watch yourself," smiled John.

Derek looked over at him as if saying, 'Aw come on! Seriously?

"Just looking out for ya." he finished, leaning back into Angela's lap he fell fast asleep against the jarring of the bus over the rough terrain.

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Trust**

* * *

**January 21, 2013**

**Outskirts of Skynet Central, California**

**10:13AM**

* * *

Cameron was as silent as the grave as she continued for the next few miles away from the Skynet Central death camp. John was free now, and she could finally 'relax' as it were. Though she doubted that he would make a full recovery so soon, given his current physical state. The resistance had medical supplies now, having finally established a headquarters, but medical treatment for nearly one thousand survivors would spread their resources very thinly. Cameron would worry about that later though, right now she needed to focus all of her attention on the path in front of her. If there was one thing that humans did better then machines, it was multitasking while driving. She did not see how people did so many things at once while still having a focus on the road.

"Hey miss," Derek chimed in behind her, "where are we headed to?"

"To the USA Resistance Command," Cameron replied almost instantaneously. "Once there you will all be taken care of properly."

"Is that where the guy on the radio is from? Derek asked, Kyle visibly sat up straight in the seat hoping to hear a positive answer to his brothers question.

Cameron didn't give an immediate answer. She pretended that her focus was solely on the former road out in front of the bus, but before long she knew a response would be warranted by the now eager young men behind her.

"Indeed," was all she said. Her eyes looked back over to John for the shortest moment before returning to the rear of Hendrick's bus up ahead.

Kyle shot Derek a look of intense pleasure and amazement as she confirmed their suspicions. Both of them had thought of the radio man as a thing of legend and now they were finally going to meet him. They both huddled down and began discussing what they were going to say to the man, who arguably was their hero, and found themselves arguing over who would get to speak to him first.

John finally woke up from his slumber and looked over at Cameron's intense gaze on the road. He stretched his body, while trying not to wake Angela, and slowly stood up in the middle aisle of the bus. As if he were walking on egg shells, he made his way up in front of the seats and stood beside Cameron. Placing a hand on the dashboard of the large bus, he crouched down and looked out of the window before turning his head to her neck and muttering, 'thank you.'

Cameron smiled but didn't take her eyes off of the landscape barreling past them. Though driving in this world was a lot simpler then before Judgment Day, she still found it a cumbersome task to perform two things at once. There was just too much information to account for and monitor while driving, Cameron finally understood why there were so many traffic related fatalities every year. After a few moments they had ran out of pavement and were back to traveling across bare soil again.

"You should not be standing there John, it's not safe," said Cameron, hoping that he would take her advice to heart and sit back down. She wasn't as lucky as she had hoped. The tires hit a snag in the ground which sent the bus slightly lurching upwards. To the people who were seated in the bus, the movement caused little to no motion at all, but John was sent flying upwards in the air and nearly had his head collide with the roof of the bus.

"You should sit down," she said, trying not to be such an authoritative figure at the moment.

"Maybe that isn't such a bad idea," John laughed before sitting down on the top step of the bus. "So," he looked back up to Cameron, "about this radio guy."

"There is no way around the fact that people have grown attached to John Henry over the past two years that you have been imprisoned John. He is the one who has been leading the resistance and putting himself out there for people to be in contact with..."

John looked back up at her so fast that she knew to stop talking, "Well, its not like I _planned_ on getting captured Cam."

"I know that John," said Cameron rather flatly, "You are the key to mankind's survival. John Henry is only a stepping stone for you to achieve your goals."

John looked up at her again like she had lost her mind, "Wait. Are you defending him?"

"I am," she said coldly, though her face betrayed the anger in her voice. It remained as peaceful and calm as ever, "Someone had to formulate strategies and help build the resistance while you were gone..."

"I am," she said coldly, though her face betrayed the anger in her voice. It remained as peaceful and calm as ever, "Someone had to formulate strategies and help build the resistance while you were gone..."

"How do I know that wasn't his plan all along? Take over the resistance and lead us all under his banner," John said accusingly. He shuffled his feet a bit before glaring out the doors of the bus.

Cameron looked ashamed of the man sitting by her side and tried to ignore him to the best of her ability, but lost the battle after 7.3 seconds, "He was not the person mainly branching out with other factions of the survivors of Judgment Day, I was."

She continued, "John Henry devoted most of his time to producing strategies on infiltrating every Skynet work camp in search for you. We have freed thirty-nine camps in the past two years. None of it would have been possible without John Henry's assistance."

"Is that so huh?" said John sarcastically, though deep down he was regretting losing his temper with her.

"Yes," Cameron said, who now turned her attention back to the land out in front of them again. Before long though she started talking to John once more, not knowing if he was listening or not.

"You should start inserting yourself more as soon as we arrive at the base. Everyone will want to know who you are and what your plans are. John Henry has let our allies know a little bit about you but some of the people are weary about your resolve."

John pondered her words for a few moments in silence, then said, "Maybe so, but I doubt anyone at all will be willing to listen and take orders from the kid who had to be carried out of a death camp."

"You would be surprised to know how many people already discuss you amongst themselves in the halls of the command center. The public respects you John, it is the ex-military personnel who think John Connor is an overblown folk tale," said Cameron assertively, "and over time if they do not come to the same conclusions as the public they will find themselves at the mercy of my wrath."

John eyed her sceptically, "Wrath?"

Her eyes looked over at him for a brief moment, "I have...developed a reputation."

* * *

John had been partially looking forward to the arrival at the resistance command, but the words of Cameron were wearing heavy on his mind. The girl had maintained a statuesque facade ever since ending their conversation nearly three hours ago; John knew that he hadn't meant to loose his temper with her...but sometimes she was just too...machine-like when he needed her to be the person who listened to him and produced her own opinions, not just facts that she liked to spew out.

Deep down he knew it was in her nature to do such a thing though, he hated to remind himself of the fact...but deep down she was still a machine. No matter how much she appeared to act human (and it was frequently now) on the inside she still remained at her core, a cyborg. He couldn't blame her whenever she did give him a piece of her mind though, he wasn't exactly the nicest person to be around nearly every minute of the day.

The trouble was that John didn't know what to make of her. One moment she was acting just like a normal average girl, and the next she was back to being the stiff character of a female Uncle Bob.

"How much longer?" asked Kyle from behind Cameron's chair.

She turned her gaze up into the mirror above the front windshield and said, "About ten more minutes."

Kyle looked satisfied with her answer and leaned back in his seat.

John chuckled at her, and she looked at him quizzically before looking back out of the front window of the bus. It wasn't that long ago when she would have told Kyle down to the nearest tenth of an second how long it would take to reach the base. Now she had began incorporating human speech into her responses.

"Cam, is John Henry going to be at the base for very long?" John asked.

"I'm sure he will want to speak with you promptly, we have been on the verge of gaining Chinese partnerships in the resistance in the past few days." Her right hand unleashed its grip from the wheel and came to rest on his shoulder.

"I'd be hard-pressed if he didn't welcome me off of the bus with a marching band and streamers," he joked.

Seeing that John had finally gotten over his mood swing she told him, "We tried to book them but they were busy celebrating in another city this week. We should be able to get them for your birthday though."

"Right," said John vaguely, not knowing if Cameron was joking, or dead serious about lining resistance members up to play instruments when his birthday came.

"Don't worry, John," Cameron said softly, "I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do."

He hoped she was right, he could never tell with Cameron. Every movement of her face was a calculated gesture, she had the perfect 'poker face'. Surmising that she was joking he let out a slow breath of air and looked at the approaching mountain range.

"Uh, Cameron?" he said worriedly.

"Yes John?"

"You do see those big, huge, immovable rocks directly in our path right?" the tone of his voice got higher as more and more people on the bus began fearing for their lives at the rapidly encroaching mountains.

"Right," she said calmly. She turned her attention to the people in the back of the bus and spoke to them, "Please remain calm."

John closed his eyes and braced for impact, but after several seconds of the humming of the motor he opened them hesitantly. They were inside a shaft, or a tunnel of some kind. The faint light from outside still poured in slightly as Cameron turned the vehicle to the left and slowed it down to a crawl. Ahead of them were the other bus captained by Will Hendricks and a large dingy room with a hallway connecting it to an even larger area.

They all exited the bus and stretched before being led into the next room by Cameron and Hendricks. It wasn't at all like John had been expecting from his experience of the alternate future he had traveled to. The room was large, but very dirty and smelled oddly enough of running water though there was no sign that water was present or running nearby. Light fixtures had been wired up and hung from the stalactites on the ceiling of the cave-like room.

Where there was room, a few people had candles burning and a small fire here and there though oddly enough John didn't see any accumulation of smoke in the air. The floor of the place was stone, but polished to a clear shine, unlike the walls and ceiling of the room. It was the only thing that gave proof of the touch of humanity in the cave, other then the lights that had recently been installed.

"Um, Cam? What the hell is this place?" John asked while still looking from one place to the next over and over again.

"This," Cameron said loudly enough for everyone to hear, "Is the current USA Resistance headquarters, everyone make yourselves at home."

She took his hand while the others were still looking over everything and led him through one of the many passages away from the main hall. After a few moments of tight squeezes through rock formations and a collision with his toe on a broken rock, they finally came to a slightly smaller room with rows of computer equipment. Sitting in front of it all was John Henry's body, which smiled up with his classic creepy smile. Ten men surrounded him and they all looked up as well.

"Hello Mr. Connor, very nice of you to join us so soon."

Everyone in the room turned and looked at the emaciated boy who entered behind Cameron. One of the men closest to them tilted his head in recognition of John as he walked over to the side of the briefing table. He was a hard-faced looking man but something about him told John he could be trusted.

"Hello, John." The man said, "Jason Ellington."

John exchanged a hello and turned back to the table. He could feel everyone's eyes boring through him, studying him, and most of them looked very agitated at his presence. Cameron hadn't been joking when she said that most of the military members were reluctant to believe a twenty-something year old boy was going to be giving them orders.

"Back to business gentlemen..." John Henry started to say before being cut-off by John's hand in the air.

"Look...I know some of you are probably apprehensive about me taking over command from John Henry here." John motioned to the cyborg sitting next to him.

"But I understand that reluctance. If I were in your position I'd probably think the same thing, but the truth is...I'm not the best man for the job. I'm not ready to lead an army of men yet." A few of the sternly-looking men turned to each other and gave themselves nods of approval at his words. Cameron brought her hand up to his shoulders and tried to stop him from talking but he was having none of it.

"If it is alright with John Henry though, I would like to be included in as many planning periods as possible, until there is a time when I see fit to takeover command." He stopped for a few seconds to allow everyone to turn their attentions back to him, "And that day _will_ be coming."

His fist made contact with the table for a little emphasis before he started to loose his balance from exhaustion. Cameron reached around his torso and caught him before he collapsed fully onto the table. She began to lead him away from the table before John turned around and faced John Henry.

"Permission to be excused?"

"Granted," the cyborg said. His face nodding towards Cameron as he spoke.

He had barely even stepped out of the room and back into the narrow rock passage before Cameron was jumping down his throat.

"That was an unwise decision John. If people will not accept your command we can..."

"What? Terminate them?" John said coyly. "Those men in there are used to doing things their way or the highway, and they have a right to be that way, they've earned it. But I didn't say I wasn't going to be abandoning my duties did I?" He looked over at her with a smirk.

"You intend to command everyone already don't you?" Cameron asked. She did not understand his method of operations. He refused to step up and take leadership from John Henry, yet he still planned on leading the resistance.

"Before every meeting takes place, I want a private meeting between you, John Henry, and myself. Together we will decide whats best to do, then bring the other men in. They will be appeased by having their opinions and ideas be heard aloud," he slid past the final rock to be standing in the main hall again, "And I will have the final say in what is actually being done. Whether the orders come from my mouth or John Henry's."

Cameron moved around the rock and walked up beside him.

"Why the strange way of operation? It would be easier to simply order the men yourself." She stated.

John looked at her for a moment before responding, "You can tell someone to do something all day, but they aren't going to do it unless you have their trust."

He began walking over to one of the fires to warm himself while Cameron followed him at a slightly slower pace. As he stood in front of the flames and was washed in warmth, she turned towards him with a 'I get it!' expression.

"You intend to garner the mens trust in order to effectively govern them in the near future."

John gave a slow nod before turning back to her with a deadpan look on his face, "Now...take me to this _radio room._"

The radio room was a small cramped space nearly the size of a small broom closet. There was enough room for the equipment, a microphone, and a chair. Even John's abnormally skinny frame had trouble fitting into the space between the chair and table that housed the radio equipment.

"Always be sure to activate this," Cameron pointed out a small device plugged into the back of the radio to him. "It a scrambles the radio signal making it impossible for Skynet to locate the origin of the broadcast."

John nodded assertively before grabbing the microphone.

"I'll wait outside until you're finished." said Cameron quietly, as she turned and left the door.

"Actually I wouldn't mind if you stayed Cam," John looked over at his companion, "might need you to wake my ass up if I pass out." He smiled up at her face.

She turned back around and at him and tilted her head, "Oh. If you are feeling faint I can administer an IV drip."

John fiddled with the dials on the old radio before looking back up at her, "Oh. Yea, that doesn't sound half bad."

Cameron let a smile curl upwards on her lips as she turned and left the room, closing the door behind her. John needed medical assistance, and had practically asked for it; she would not let him down.

Back inside the radio room, a thousand thoughts were running through John's mind on what to say with his first initial broadcast. John took a deep breath and hit the button on the microphone. Its speaker squawked a reply that it was working and he began addressing humanity across the globe.

"If anyone is out there listening to this, this is John Connor. I've been told that pieces of the former military's from around the globe have began joining together to initialize a global resistance against the threat of the machines. Those of you out there listening to this need to know that everything that can be done to end this destruction is about to begin shortly. As the days go by our resources are growing stronger and soon we will begin our campaign of waging war on Skynet's home field. It is because of this that I ask anyone listening to gather the courage they have buried within themselves and let it explode, because right now we need you all in this fight. "

Cameron re-entered the room and set the IV bag down on the table next to the radio. She turned to him and smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes this time.

John released the button on the microphone and asked, "You okay Cam?"

"Yes...I'm fine," said Cameron, partially woken from her daydream. "Make a fist."

He clenched his fist together while Cameron searched for a vein. With his gaunt body, it wasn't hard to find one, and she stuck the IV into his arm. John winced as the needle invaded his skin.

John pressed the button back down on the microphone as Cameron placed a bandage over the needle for it to stay in place.

"Skynet has began making bi-pedal Terminators. While they are large and fear-inducing they are not indestructible. Their primitive design will allow you to outrun them if you are able to. The chest plate is reinforced with thick metal making it difficult to penetrate, but a well-aimed strike to the head will render them useless."

"During my time at the Skynet Century work camp I saw firsthand what comprises the T-1 tank infiltrators. These aren't to be confused with the larger tanks, these are much smaller and more mobile. With the improved design they are capable of rotating 180 degrees before they will experience a slight hiccup in their systems. It will only last for a moment but this can buy you time to find cover to plan an escape."

"If you choose to fight you should know that like the T-70 bi-pedal's a well aimed strike to the head will render them non-functional. A thing worthy of note is the mechanism that attaches the .50 caliber machine guns to the arms is not a welded piece. If you find a downed T-1 tank, remember that a strong hit to the joist mechanism above the gun will allow it to fall and be used independently from the machine body. Also the treads along the left and right bases are made of a thin metallic material. A small charge or large caliber weapon will make them unable to move if you take these out."

He paused and took a few breathes. It took a moment for him to realize that he had instinctively held out his hand for Cameron, who took it gently while truly smiling at him. Her gaze gave John strength to keep going.

"Most of you out there are going to be alone or in small groups. It's going to be hard, but gather whatever weapons you can find. Don't be afraid to steal from hospitals, police stations, or any place that has goods for you to arm yourself and stay alive."

"Perhaps the most important thing I can tell you is we all need to work together. Whatever grudges you have or prejudices you harbor, I ask that you put these petty differences aside and join us. We can not afford to allow fighting or anything else to make us kill the few members of humanity left. Right now our numbers are low, but tomorrow, with your help they will be strong. Remember to stay safe. Its a dangerous world out there, and we need everyone to stay alive right now...This is John Connor, if you are listening to this, then I ask that you join the resistance..."

The message ended as he looked up to Cameron and he shut the radio off. The room grew silent as they both stood in each others company neither making the first move to even get up and leave the tiny radio space.

It was finally Cameron who broke the silence, "What would you like now, John?" Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"Well eating with this in," he raised his arm with the IV in it, "seems a little redundant. So do we have anywhere to sleep around here?"

Cameron smiled down at John, "Of course."

John picked up the IV bag that was attached to his arm and rose from his chair. She opened the door for them and they both stepped through the entrance to see the entire main hall standing in front of them. Hushed whispers and quiet voices suddenly died away and gave way to complete silence as John and Cameron stepped fully into the room.

"There's John Connor," said a blond woman to her daughter in the front row.

"Look," said another person amongst the crowd, "it's that guy!"

It took a moment for it to finally dawn on him just how important he was to the public. Sure the military (for the moment) had John Henry, but the public had John Connor. He felt an unusual sense of pride in himself as Cameron held onto his shoulder to keep him from falling over.

Kyle and Derek made their way to the front of the crowd, both of them beaming in awe at John.

"Where do we sign up sir?" said Derek. Both he and Kyle began nervously shuffling their feet and looking down at the ground when John didn't give an immediate answer.

John chuckled at the boy's gesture, "Just make sure to show up tomorrow when we need you," he said as they passed by the crowd, "you don't have to do anything more then that."

Cameron lead John down one of the actual hallways in the place which then branched off into one of the cave veins. At the end of it was a pile of blankets, a small fireplace, and a chair with a table pushed up against the side of the wall.

"Home sweet home," John muttered while lowering himself down on the pile of blankets to be used as a mattress. _They are like floating on heavenly clouds_, he thought. _Anything is better sleeping in mud and dirt for two years._

Cameron took the IV bag from John's hand and draped it across the back of the chair, giving it enough gravity for it to work efficiently. She turned back down to John only to find him staring back up at her.

"It's good to have you back," she smiled.

John let a smile form on his lips before answering, "It's good to be back...now come on." He motioned with his hands for her to join him.

"John, now is not the time to be engaging in..." she was cut off by a laugh coming down from her friend.

"God Cam," he laughed again. "Get your mind out of the gutter," he teased. "It would just be awkward if someone came looking for me and found you hovering over me like a statue don't you think?"

Cameron could not fault him there, his logic was sound. "Oh," she said understandingly.

She made her way over next to John and laid down on his right side, careful not to put any of her weight on his body. What happened next was unexpected and took her by surprise. John brought his left arm up behind his head as a makeshift pillow, his other arm snaked its way under her neck and came to rest on her right shoulder. He breathed a sigh of contentment before falling to sleep beside his watchful protector.

Cameron studied John carefully as his heartbeat slowed down and his breathing became more steady. Normally John was a troubled sleeper, not so much to the extent of Sarah Connor, but he didn't have very many good nights of rest. Yet right in front of her eyes (literally) John was asleep, with a smile on his face.

Almost tempted to stay awake and study him for hours upon hours, she brought up the sleeping routine that she had created two years ago and applied it to her motor control functions. As it slowly began to send her to sleep, she brought her right arm up on top of John's chest, letting her hand rest upon John's heart protectively.

* * *

John and Cameron were both woken a little while later by the footsteps of someone approaching their room but unlike Cameron, John made no effort to move or acknowledge their presence. Instead he kept his grip on Cameron's shoulder as she tried to get up and see who was coming.

"Cam, relax. We're in the middle of a command base, I highly doubt that someone is stupid enough to try and assassinate me here," John said from behind his closed eyes.

She didn't respond, only settled back down in his embrace as the person ducked below a hanging stalactite and came into their room. John could hear a slight gasp and then a rushed sense of someone turning around before they began speaking with a slightly embarrassed tone.

"J...John. Uh...General Henry wants to see you, and uh...Cameron," Angela's voice quivered at the sight the two teens laying down next to each other.

"Thanks," said John. "Tell him we will be right there."

Needing no further explanation, Angela started walking back out of the room and into the cave vein that served as a hallway. Quickly trying to forget the sight of John and Cameron laying there on the floor. It didn't look like they had been up to much, but it just seemed a rather odd time to Angela for them to be...doing whatever they were doing.

"Guess we should get going," said John teasingly.

"It would be wise," affirmed Cameron. They both stood and started towards the command strategy room where John Henry was waiting for them.

Inside the room they found John Henry, Ellison, Hendricks, and Angela waiting for them. Cameron and John took seats at the end of the table next to the AI before John spoke up.

"Lets begin, shall we?" Everyone around the room nodded in approval and John Henry began speaking.

"My brother has recently opened a new internment facility near Serrano Point. Though that is not the only obstacle we face."

John Henry's eyes hovered above Ellison's shoulder while files began pouring onto the LCD screen over the AI's head.

"The Russian and Chinese forces are finding it difficult to launch offenses on Skynet there. Most if not all of Russia has succumbed to the cold of the environment and lack of electricity for heat. Those that do remain are nearly all in the work camps setup by my brother."

Angela interrupted the speech, looking very confused by John Henry's words, and also very upset.

"Wait, wait. Your brother?" She looked over at John, "I thought you said the enemy was a computer program?"

John Henry spoke up for her questions, "I was created for the sole purpose of putting an end to my brothers existence. Do not be alarmed, I mean no harm."

Both Hendricks and Angela shot up from the table, overturning their chairs in the process. Despite his words, Hendricks looked scared for his life while Angela looked like she was about to kill the man standing in front of her.

"You...are a machine?" Angela seethed.

"Correct," said John Henry.

Angela drew back her hand as if she were about to strike him before John ordered her to stand down. "Angie, right now he's an ally. You can save your anger for another day, right now it's not helping us."

The woman turned her head to John and vented her frustration out on him, "John you were there. You know what they did to us! How can you say they are _allies_?"

"It was because of him that we escaped the camp Angela, relax a little. When the wars over and you still feel like beating his brains out, I'll guarantee you free dibs."

She didn't look pleased one bit but seated herself back down beside Hendricks. Everyone in the room could hear her mumbling obscenities before John Henry started up again.

"While the Chinese are proving resilient they do require assistance immediately. Therefore I think it is a level-two priority that we designate some of my mechanical troops in that sector as soon as possible."

John looked up to the cyborg sitting near him, "Good, sounds excellent. What about Serrano Point?" He turned to Cameron, "I thought you said we weren't going to have access to it until 2027?"

"Things change," was all she said before John Henry started his speech again.

"The facility is a difficult one to capture. The nuclear aspect of its existence prevents any artillery or bombing of the area before entering. And my brother is sure to have it heavily guarded."

A few screen shots lit up the facility that were boosted from the internet back in 2009. John Henry got up and surveyed them along with everyone else.

"I would call for a force of ten thousand, that will be sufficient enough to overwhelm the base."

"Well that's the problem John Henry, we don't _have_ ten thousand soldiers to swarm the base. I doubt you even have an army of ten..."

"Fifty thousand," John Henry corrected him. "But again, I am relocating most of them to the Chinese sector following our invasion of Avila Beach. We will need to relocate to Serrano Point once the facility is taken. It will provide ample power for everyone, as well as shelter, and heat."

"And what about the other leaders?" said John disbelievingly. "I doubt they know the machines on the battlefield killing other machines are under your control."

"Correct," said John Henry, "as of yet, they have not seen them in action."

The room quieted down to being able to hear a pin drop before John spoke up, "_Excuse me_?"

John Henry opened his mouth not knowing what to say to the boy standing in front of him. _Perhaps the boy is suffering from malfunction due to his recent escape._

"They haven't _seen_ them in action? What the hell have you been stashing them around for? Planting trees and flowers?" John'stemper was beginning to grow to a boiling point. Angela looked over at him as if she was willing him to dismantle the machine before their very eyes.

"I have not harbored enough trust from them to risk this body to their anger should things go awry."

"That's all good and fine but they will be called into action tomorrow," he looked down at Angela, "along with our troops. If people don't like it," John returned his gaze to the AI, "they can sit on the sidelines while we do all the work."

"Now," John turned towards the LCD screen and studied the pictures of Serrano Point again, "we still have to figure out a way to get in there. You can't just send in a wall of troops and hope they finally break through," John said scathingly. "Back when I did it when the 132nd Skynet was rather careless with the place it only had three units protecting it, and two of them were in standby mode in the control room. But now I just don't know about what could be going on..."

He turned back to Cameron who was still sitting in her chair, "If you were defending the plant, how would you hold the positions."

"That is not necessary..." John Henry started to say rather harshly before John brought his hand up in front of him.

"Cameron?" The future leader of man-kind's tone let John Henry know that for right now, the boy wasn't going to be listening to anyone other then Cameron.

Her eyes flew from John to the screens over his shoulder. She studied them all carefully while pulling up visual memories of her time spent in the plant during 2009. Various layouts and diagrams were compiled from the visual memory banks within a matter of seconds.

"Given the existence of the T-70 units, Skynet can now transport small and specialized equipment to surrounding areas." She stood up and turned to John Henry, "Is this screen capable of interaction?"

He nodded and the screen was wiped blank to a white page. Cameron brought her hands up and began to draw out the entire facility from memory on the screen in front of them.

"Local terrain and lodging here," she pointed to strategic points on the map she had drawn, "make these an ideal placement for any large caliber weapon or turret. However, given that the facility is needed by the resistance and will likely not suffer a bomb or attack, Skynet is most likely to keep all of its defenses inside the plant until such a time will come when they are needed."

Her hand moved the main exterior drawing to the side and began working on another one of the interior of the plant, "This room is the main workstation, and is likely to be housing either automated equipment to run the factory or either to be utilizing T-70 units."

"Under this floor," her hand again shifted the drawing aside and began another of the basement floor, "are the nuclear fuel rods and mechanical equipment needed to run the plant. Given that most of the access points to the ground floor above are via small stairwells, this rules out any ability of Skynet housing T-2 tank units here. They would not be able to exit the basement and proceed up to the ground level to defend their position."  
"The control room," she started on the final drawing, "is located up above the ground floor in a large suspended ceiling area. Any hits or firing into this area will completely shut the plant down and render it inactive for the resistance to use."

Her eyes studied the plant carefully again, "All of the defensive units will be housed on the ground floor."

She turned back to John, waiting for him to speak.

"How many do you think they could fit in there before feasibly being unable to keep the plant running?"

"No more then two thousand," she said, her eyes studying the diagrams in front of her carefully to recalculate the math for the fifth time.

John turned back to the AI now standing to the side of the table, "That fifty thousand seems a little excessive now doesn't it? Besides," he turned back to Cameron and held her hand, "We can't let you have all the work."

John Henry turned a confused face over to the boy, "I thought I was to help ensure the victory of the war? That was my meaning in overwhelming the beach with my machines."

"I know what your intention was," John voice lowered and lost all of its anger, "but you didn't stop and think about things. We need you to _help_ win the war, not win it for us."

He turned back to the AI after studying the screen for a few more moments, "If you win the war for us, we learn nothing in the process."

The AI again continued looking at John as if it were monumentally confused, "I do not understand."

"Of course you don't," John chuckled, "right now you are so focused on the mission and not the big picture I doubt you could see it if I pointed it out to you." He sighed, "But I guess I'll give it a try. The whole reason the war happened in the first place, is because we were too prideful. We thought anything was possible, and anything we created would obey us. Skynet's war is a test from the universe, a force of nature that's telling us 'If you think you have the right to keep on living, fight for it'."

"If we let you win the war for us, I can guarantee someone will be creating another Skynet in the next fifty or a hundred years. I don't want that to happen. I want people to realize there are consequences for what we do, everything we do." His words weighed heavily on everyone in the room as he turned his attention back to the screen on the wall.

"Now, a small group of five or ten for each of these," John pointed to the two places on the map that Cameron had designated for turrets to be located, "should do fine." He turned to Cameron for another reference, "Does Skynet have access to plasma weapons yet?"

Her eyes had never left his face from the moment he had stood from his seat, and now they continued staring into his soul, "No, but they will soon."

"When?"

"July 23, 2013. The first successful plasma cartridge testing will take place in Skynet's headquarters in NORAD mountain range."

Angela quit sulking and shooting angry glances at John Henry and turned her attention to Cameron, "How does she know this stuff John?"

He turned towards her slowly with his arms crossed across his chest now. Cameron looked hurt that he had released her hand from his grasp, "You know Skynet was capable of time travel in the future." John nodded towards Cameron, "She's from the future."

Angela and Hendricks both gave a surprised 'oh' face towards John as he turned around and took her hand again. Cameron looked thoughtfully over to John, _He still feels the need to protect my identity even from those close to him._

"And you said no more then two thousand units will be in the interior?" John looked back over to Cameron and gave her hand a slight squeeze.

She gave a slow nod as her answer.

"Okay, here's what I'm thinking." John moved his free hand up and expanded the diagram that Cameron had drawn. "We send in a force of a few hundred troops here," John motioned towards the front flank of the power plant.

"That should make Skynet draw out its housed units for a protection detail. Another squad of one or two hundred soldiers will move up from the rear here," John pointed behind the complex, next to the sandy beach.

"After the initial frontal assault begins we send these rear men inside to disable anything inside the building that belongs to Skynet. Then they can move up behind Skynet's defensive units and we squeeze them until they break."

"What about any recurring forces, John?" asked Angela, quite surprised by the boys plan. It was simplistic but brilliant.

John turned back to Angela before looking over at John Henry, "Think you can have your units protect the facility from any aerial attacks after the base is taken?"

"Yes," John Henry said shortly.

"Good," said John, shaking his head as he went over the plan again in his head. "Anyone have anything to add?" He turned towards Angela and Hendricks for their approval.

"Its...kinda simple John," said Hendricks jokingly. "There isn't much to address."

Angela spoke up almost as soon as he quit talking, "Whats the exit strategy?"

Everyone turned to Angela, who was sitting back in her chair leaning it back on the hind-legs calmly. "Oh, come on. Everyone has an exit strategy...Ya know...for when things don't go according to plan. And things _never_ go according to plan"

"One way or another," John said, "we have to take this base tomorrow. If we implement an exit strategy it's only going to hurt us."

"Hurt us? Why would one hurt us? Its meant to do the exact opposite of that!" she retorted.

"Once we attack the place that's it, the element of surprise is over. Right now Skynet only knows that a few of it's internment camps have been compromised, we haven't hit a major encampment yet. Once we do, Skynet will only beef up its security around the globe. It would be next to suicidal to attack that place again. Right now it's practically gift wrapped for us." John said to everyone in the room. He knew his words were sinking in to them, allowing them to know that he wasn't lying.

"If nobody else has anything to add, I think that'll be all." He moved back over to Cameron's side and hung his arm around her shoulder, partially for support for having been standing for so long, and partially because he felt he needed her confidence.

"Oh, before I forget." He turned his face one more time over to Angela and Ellison, "There are a couple of new recruits who are going to need field training. Can you two handle them for now?"

"John," said Ellison, visually worn out from the long day they all had, "now is not the time for us to be babysitting new people to..."

"Its the Reese brothers," John said firmly, which stopped Ellison in his tracks.

"I'll get right on it," Ellison said, shaking his head in understanding. The man stood and exited the room before Angela raised her eyebrow at John.

"I'm taking this as an order aren't I?" she teased.

"Not unless you would like me to actually say _Its an order_,"

John laughed back to her.

"Well," she chuckled and grabbed Hendricks by the arm to lead him out of the room, "we should get started then."

John turned back to the AI standing off to the side of the main table in the room, "Call the others in now. Let's get this circus over with."

The meeting had gone smoothly, and ended quickly. The men sat and listened as John Henry discussed the plan that John had already approved prior to the meeting taking place. Though they were quick to overwrite its simplicity, John offered key insights into what they might be expecting once inside the base. He added in details about his time spent in the death camp for emphasis as the men slowly all agreed on his plan.

As everyone left the room Cameron watched John carefully from the corner of the table. She knew that look on his face, that unmistakable tone in his voice, the way he was carrying himself now. Cameron watched as the last remaining bits and pieces of John Baum were slowly washed away and John Connor stood before her, holding out his hand to lead her back to their room. The boy was no more, as he stepped out into the main hall he took a breath of fresh air, the General had finally made his appearance.

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: The Battle Of Avila Beach**

* * *

**January 22, 2013**

**Avila Beach – Serrano Point, California**

**8:01AM**

* * *

The sound of waves grew louder as the bus carrying the men and women of the resistance drew nearer to its target. There, about a mile away from Serrano Point, they would be shuffled out and begin their march up the beach to overtake the facility from Skynet. They had approximately one hour before Alpha team would be causing the distraction on the outskirts of the plant. So all they would have to do was march for a mile on the loose sand of a beach, wait for alpha team's attack to commence, and then takeover the plant.

_ Great_, John thought. His mind raced carefully back over the plan for the morning; march up the beach, wait for the distraction, begin pursuit of the nuclear plant, cut down any enemies in their way, enter the plant and gain control from Skynet, rush up the encampment forces hammering Alpha company, and try not to get killed.

Cameron had pretty much insisted that he stay at the Command base but John knew he couldn't. If he was to gain any trust and respect from the military personnel that filled the bus, it would begin here. To all the men and women on the bus, he was Major John Connor, and he would remain that way until they trusted him absolutely and without question. After a few battles and victories they would begin to see him as _General _John Connor, the man he had literally been born and raised to be. He did not intend to stay in the appointed rank that John Henry had given him for very long.

He noticed that his right hand was shaking and brought his left hand up to steady it. Cameron, sitting beside him, noticed this too and offered her help, "Are you okay John?"

"Uh...yea," his voice trembled, "...maybe just a little water." He couldn't take his eyes off her face, it brought him peace and confidence in the state of the world today. It remained calm and beautiful just as the first him he had seen her even in the face of possible death on the battlefield today.

She nodded and handed him her canteen, he took it readily and downed a large gulp of water. For some reason as the liquid bathed the back of his throat, it didn't quench his thirst. He lowered it from his face and his mouth was still as dry as ever. John handed the canteen back to her as the bus ground to a halt.

"Alright everyone, lets go." John said, not looking back at the people we has commanding. He got up slowly then jogged down the bus steps and out onto the sand of the beach. His lungs filled with the salty air as more and more people began filing in to groups.

He took a look around the area and saw a surprisingly intact town near Avila beach. John assumed that it had been blasted apart like all other areas of the world, but he guessed with a nuclear power plant nearby that Skynet couldn't afford to blow it up. There was a perimeter road that Alpha team would be heading up towards. It went along the beach for the entire length of the small town. John heard someone clear their throat behind him and he turned to see everyone had fallen into formation.

Each group consisted of ten to fifteen people. Since their company was expecting little to no resistance from the plant at the time of their attack, each group contained; a medic, sniper, three to five infantry men, one radio man, a demolitions expert, a flamethrower, and finally a heavily armed gunner. All together they had twenty teams and one-hundred-twenty-five personnel on the beach. Charlie company would be behind them with cybernetic reinforcements of two-hundred infantry if things got hairy.

They all looked up at him as he slowly turned around and faced them, "We all have our orders...lets do this and come home safe."

"Oorah!" was the chorus of the women and men standing in front of him.

_ Outstanding, _thought John as they turned and began their march on the beach.

* * *

"Lets go people I ain't got all day," said Angela commandingly. She was on a schedule from Connor, and she was damn sure going to follow it. There was a lot of stuff that she came to know and respect about John while she served time with him in Skynet Central. One thing above all was that he placed as much trust and faith in you that he would demand in return. Right now he had given her the opportunity to lead this charge on the power plant, and she was going to make it the best distraction in history if she had anything to say about it.

Alpha company began forming their ranks and moving their four-hundred strong march on the Serrano point facility. Angela had been offered a hundred cybernetic troops by John but she had flat out refused them. In her eyes metal wasn't to be trusted, not after all they went through in that hell hole.

Angela turned to her right and saw William Hendricks reciting the rosary to himself, clutching a small wooden cross that hung from a bracelet on his wrist. It struck her as odd, because she had never seen this behavior from William before. She was taken aback by the mans apparent faith in the almighty, especially given the world they all lived in now.

"I didn't know you were Catholic," she chuckled while heaving her rifle up in front of her to survey the area. They were coming up on the battlefield, and just like Cameron had said, she could see exactly where the turrets were entrenched in the ground out in front of the large complex. _Damn that girl knows her shit!_

"There is a lot of stuff about me that people don't know Hendrick's said jokingly. His eyes though betrayed his face as they showed the fear he was experiencing. He tried to shake the feeling of unease in his body but he just couldn't. Something didn't feel quite right about the mission today, yesterday everything was fine but today something just seemed...off.

"Well," she returned his joking tone of voice, "we will have to see about remedying that when we get back won't we?" She eyed him carefully as he turned and smiled a gleaming white set of teeth towards her.

The body posture he exuded told her that she hadn't came through to him yet and she gave him another slap on the shoulder, "Hey man, lighten up. You are making me nervous..."

Before long they had reached a one-hundred meter distance from the facility and they all took up cover behind overturned cars and debris that were on the former perimeter road of the town. For the factory in front of them to be churning out smoke like it was, everything was eerily quiet. Angela didn't like quiet, quiet meant scheming and planning, or impending death in her eyes.

"Alright, remember. Make this seem like we're pushing in and we're golden. Try not and get within fifty meters of this place, any closer then that and we are sitting ducks for anything they have inside there. Demo's I want you to concentrate on those turrets first and foremost. As soon as we begin firing they are gonna hammer us with everything they've got. A few short bursts from them and every thing we have to cover behind is blown to smithereens," Angela whispered to the men behind her as they all silently nodded at her commands.

She turned her attention to her watch and waited for the designated time to appear. After finally seeing 09:00 flash across the screen she smirked to herself before raising her gaze to the company of men behind her, "Okay boys. Lets boogie."

* * *

John was crouched behind a few sand dunes along with his men about a hundred meters from the rear of the facility when he heard gunfire. "This is it! We all know what to do, let's get it done."

A few explosions shot out into the air as the gunfire ceased in front of the power plant and he turned his attention back to the large complex in front of him. Before he could ask himself what had happened he received his answer, a burst volley of return fire rang out as the T-70 units and T-2 tank machines began rolling out of the buildings front. _They've taken the bait!_

John held up his hand in a 'hold positions' stance while he crawled up on top of the dune to survey what lay before them. His head peered up above the top of the sand pile and saw about seventy-five feet or so of open beach but then something struck his attention full force. An entire regiment of T-70 units were proceeding forward into the power plant, their number well over the expected encampments for the building.

He turned to Cameron, "No more then two thousand huh?"

Cameron looked up above the sand dune with him and saw the soldiers before returning to her hidden position. She looked up at him with an expression full of sorrow, "Things change."

John smirked at her before turning his back on the power plant and shoving it back down into the sand dune, "Charlie Company! Move out and give them hell!"

A clanking of metal was heard as the platoon of mechanical soldiers provided by John Henry began progressing forward of their position. John watched them pass the sand dunes and open fire on the units guarding the rear of the facility. _The two-hundred strong team should manage just fine with the inferior T-70 units_, thought John. An explosion of gunfire ripped open on both sides of the battlefield as the machines began fighting machines.

"Stay sharp everyone!" He waited for a few more seconds until the entirety of Charlie company had passed them, "Attack!"

The teams all stood up on top of the mounds and began running over them and onto the inclined beach ahead of the power plant. It was a slow incline of about five degrees up to the facility, which gave Skynet the high ground but they had no choice but to proceed. John didn't notice though that half of Charlie company had already been annihilated.

Loud booming shots echoed throughout the vicinity as turret fire from the second floor exterior walkways began chewing into the encroaching forces. Terminators were falling left and right as they were hit with the large caliber shells and rendered useless. Fighting against T-70's was one thing, but a machine against a turret gun was something else entirely, and John realized that full force now.

"I thought they were supposed to be advanced models?...Isn't that what he said?" John asked Cameron quickly.

She looked over at him and didn't even blink as a bullet sprayed sand up into her face, "True. John Henry's terminators are far superior in hand to hand combat given their fortifications and higher surface area of metal. The large caliber rounds from the turrets appear to be armor-piercing ammunition." She looked at him now as if for the first time in the entire day she was worried about their situation, "We weren't built to withstand heavy weapons fire, especially if it is armor-piercing."

"COVER!" John yelled, but was too late. John hit the dirt right next to Cameron along with a few men and women who were standing close enough to hear his order being shouted again, "COVER!" He turned back to Cameron, "And you, try not to get hit." She gave him a resolute nod before ducking back down into the flat sand again. _As soon as the turrets were through plowing through the friendly infiltrators, it would only be a matter of time before they began aiming at my troops._

No sooner had John thought that then one of the turrets broke off its engagement and began firing on the human squad in the rear. The glowing rounds of weapons fire ate up the troops along his left flank before slowly beginning to arc his way. He felt the incredible force akin to a brick wall collide with his back, forcing him even further into the ground. John knew it was Cameron, as she laid down on top of his body and covered his head with her arms and hands.

Man after man fell to his side as the shots collided with their bodies. Red mist flew up into the air each time that a round hit its target, and small explosions of sand were thrown into the air when they missed. Something smacked against Cameron's hand covering face and John peered out between her fingers to find a severed arm seeping blood down onto them both.

John swatted the body part away before turning his attention back on the mechanical soldiers that were proceeding up to the nuclear facility. They were not even bothering to take cover behind anything, they merely tried to march right up into the facility, and were failing at it miserably. It seemed that every second, at least one or more of the troops were being destroyed by the turrets. John Henry's men were doing their best to hold off the assault but their numbers were rapidly declining.

People began crying out in pain as explosions started going off all around them. Large hails of sand rained back down on them as they all ducked for cover now. John saw a female medic off to his right trying to carry a fellow member of her squad back to the safety of the sand dunes. Her hands were clutched around the shoulder straps of his pack, as she dragged his body over the pile of sand. John could see from his position that the man was already dead, everything below his navel had been exploded and blown away by a grenade blast.

"Keep cover!" John yelled from below Cameron's protective body.

Another squad of soldiers was just now rounding the top of the sand dune when a turret turned is full attention on them. Body after body fell into the dirt as shots rang out in the hundreds. Of the fifteen that were climbing over the dune, only three made it past the turret fire and to the cover point where the other men were now desperately trying to avoid the gaze of the turrets.

John turned his attention back to the ground in front of him as he felt a stream of liquid start flowing under him. He looked up from between Cameron's fingers and saw a small trickle of red blood beginning to make its way back down the beach and to the ocean below. It wasn't the only area being streamed with blood, the entire area where everyone was ducking down from the turret fire was currently either splashing or soaking in red water. The landscape was literally being painted red by the blood of his men.

Everything went quiet after that, he could still see the last remaining forces of John Henry putting up a fight against the machines, which by now were dwindling. The turret continued to rain down hell upon the beach as the last twenty or thirty survivors started ducking down for cover like John had told them to do. Each second that passed felt like an eternity as men and women screamed to no end. Many of them that were laying on the sand behind them were clutching at arms and legs that were no longer there, or trying to stop the bleeding from one of the many bullet holes riddling their bodies. The sound of the steady machine gun fire and screams slowly subsided until John could no longer hear anything other then the sound of Cameron breathing in to his neck.

Out in front of him a man was on his knees and screaming up into the air with his rifle raised, firing shots off into the left turrets direction. John saw the T-70 unit behind the turret begin to turn and focus on the man shooting at it down below. It opened fire and the mans right arm fell from his body and hit the sand before more rounds chewed up what remained of his chest. The man slammed in to the ground, his eyes wide open and blank. They stared at John with such a emotionless gaze that he was shaken to his very core.

To his right there was a group of five men huddled down closely together before a round from a turret set one of the mens flamethrower tanks on fire. The area erupted in flames as the people around the man tried desperately to outrun the blasts. Those that were set on fire began screaming at the top of their lungs and either dropped dead soon after, or hauled ass into the ocean down below to put the flames out.

A voice from above him called his name, and brought him back to reality, "John...What now John?" Cameron talked as calmly as she would have been doing if they were back at Command in their room. The peaceful nature of her voice helped bring him back from his shell shock.

The sounds of hell came rushing back to him as he slowly regained control of himself, "Demo! I need a demo here now!"

A man ran up from his unit and hit the dirt hard right next to John, "Orders SIR?"

"Get as many charges as you can, make us a hole up in front, get it done now!"

"YES SIR," the man reached behind his pack and unpacked two entire handfuls of landmines and threw them about fifteen feet out in front of John. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

Everyone ducked and covered their heads while waiting on the explosions to wreck havoc on the area up ahead. A few moments later a crater opened up where the mines had landed, a dirt cloud flew up fifty feet into the air and rained back down on the men taking cover on the beach. The man next to John climbed up on what was now the edge of the crater in the ground and smiled.

"We're in business Sir!" he ducked back down as bullets began hitting the ground where he had been surveying the area.

"Everyone! Over the crater now!" John screamed at the top of his lungs. Cameron lifted off of him and threw him into the crater by the back of his clothes. He landed with a soft thud before grabbing his rifle laying next to him in the sand.

Shots began ringing out like crazy as the remaining members of Bravo team began pouring into the hole for cover. When they all settled down again John did a quick number check, they were down to seventeen members. _Seventeen?...seventeen out of a hundred-twenty-five..._

John looked up above the rim of the crater to judge where the enemy was standing and saw the last member of John Henry's mechanical army fall aside. It looked like there were three T-70's still on the ground level now approaching them, and the two remaining upstairs on the turrets.

He ducked back down and shouted, "Anyone got grenades?"

"YEA," came the response of four members of his team.

"Alright, you see those T-70's on the ground coming in on us? Light 'em up!" he shouted again and took cover from the impending blasts.

The people all dislodged the firing pins and threw the grenades at the encroaching mechanical soldiers. One of the men hesitated after throwing his grenade and paid the price heavily for it. A .50 caliber round collided with his nose as the mans entire head was ripped from his shoulders.

A few moments later the grenades exploded with a massive cloud of debris and sand. John saw metal parts flying everywhere, a clear sign they had found their targets. He waited for a few seconds later as the sand and debris in the air subsided before looking out to see if the T-70's on the ground were taken care of, and indeed they were. _Three down, two to go..._

* * *

"You see that fucker coming in there?" screamed Angela to the heavy gunner to her right. "He's gonna level us if you don't get some firing power on that goddamn metal."

The man looked out where she motioned and saw the T-2 tank unit coming their way, and furiously nodded his head. He remained crouched and set up his Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun on the hood of a dead car.

Angela tapped him on the shoulder before he opened fire to let him know to cease-fire until she gave the order, "Aim for the head!"

She signaled with her hand to gain the attention of people huddled behind a nearby overturned bus. They all nodded to let her know she had their full attention and she turned back to the gunner beside her and smirked in his direction.

"Covering fire!" she yelled as the men and herself took aim at the bot to confuse it before the man opened fire with the more heavily impacting weapon.

The ammunition went out in short bursts as the T-2 machine struggled to take aim between the solitary Angela and the group of ten men approximately twenty feet to her left. Finally deciding on the group of men, it turned and opened fire on the bus. Before being able to determine if its shots hit home, everything went dead in its systems.

Angela watched with pride as the .50 caliber round from the M2 tore through the machines skull. "Hell yea," she said and turned back down to the man and gave him a slap on the shoulder, "Nice shooting."

A yell came up from her right as one of the men charged in front of their cover, overcome with rage by the battle. Up until now Alpha team had yet to loose a single man, and Angela aimed to keep it that way.

"Cover me," she screamed at the men and took off running after the idiot with the death wish.

The man kept running, right on past the now downed T-2 tank and opened fire on the approaching T-70 squad rounding the corner of the entrance to the power plant. He let out a war cry as his ammunition slowly drained and went dry. The ammunition from his rifle merely pinged off of the metallic death drones in front of him. Before the units could open fire on him, he took cover behind the torso of the tank unit.

Shots dinged off of the metal case as he hurriedly got another clip from his sack, tapped it on his helmet to free it of any dirt, and rammed it into the weapon. Just as he was about to fire he heard Angela run up beside him, also taking cover behind the tank.

"COVERING FIRE!" she screamed at the top of her lungs while she grabbed the man aiming at the units in front of them and shoved him down to the ground.

A rupture of shots began volleying across the former parking lot of the power plant as Angela stood up behind the cover of the tank.

"Next time you feel like doing something stupid," she seethed down at the man, "make yourself useful!"

Without another second being wasted she brought her knee up to her chest and kicked the right winged machine gun hanging from the tanks arm. The heavy weapon dislodged from the chassis and fell to the ground with a loud metallic thud.

Angela reached down and grabbed the gun and brought it up to rest on the remains of the tank treads for support. Then she aimed it at the approaching Terminators starting to exit the parking lot of the power plant about forty feet in front of her and the idiot. She let out a war cry of her own that echoed over the shots of the gun she carried, as well as it carrying over the sound of over one-hundred rifles behind her.

Unit after unit fell in her wake as she stood in place and struggled to keep the gun steady, arcing it left and right to mow down the incoming machines.

"Now _that's_," she looked back down at the man with a smile on her face as the weapon ran out of ammo, "how you be stupid with a purpose."

* * *

"Cameron," John shouted at his friend loud enough for everyone around them to hear, even though she was right next to him. He was on the verge of loosing his hearing from the blasts, "is any of that stuff directly under the turrets needed for production at the plant?"

She took a peak above the rim calmly and surveyed the area John spoke of. A few moments later she huddled back down next to him with an equally calm, "Yes."

"Shit!" John seethed. He was running out of ideas on how to take out the machines without damaging the plant too severely for them to use. "Anyone got the M2?"

A resounding "No" swept through the remaining men before John again huddled down next to Cameron and uttered 'shit' again. "Gather the weapons and ammo!"

He took off with the others while two men stayed behind and put down covering fire for the group now desperately looking for any remaining heavy weapons. Many rifles were lifted and toted back to the crater but they still didn't have the M2 John was looking for. John was just about to head back when Cameron slammed down into the sand next to him.

In her hands was the prized M2 .50 Caliber weapon that he had been searching for. She took deadly aim with the weapon before firing it at the left turret. Her body absorbed the recoil like it was nothing as she turned it to the right and began aiming on the right turret.

Numerous signs, calculations, and data statistics flashed over her HUD while it took her the 2.74 seconds needed to aim the bullet right between the T-70's optical sensors. With a slight flinch of her fingers the bullet had screamed out of the chamber and hit its target with a resounding, "thunk."

"Finally! Alright everyone, over the crater, press forward now!" John led the charge with Cameron on his heels as they entered the pavement near the compound, and finally made their was off of the sand.

The men all ran up over the rim of the crater and strafed across the remaining beach up into the rear of the power plant. Inside they found no units at all guarding the interior of the plant.

_ Good, _John thought, _they're all outside! _He turned around to Cameron who was holding the M2 machine gun with only one hand, it rose up next to her face as she surveyed the area.

"Cam," he whispered to her. Nobody around them could even hear him, but she turned her head to him as if he were speaking loud and clear.

"Yes John?" she responded with an equally quiet voice.

He motioned to the heavy weapon that she was holding with one hand, "Don't be a freak. Kay?"

Her face turned into that classic 'oh' face before smiling at him, "Thank you for explaining."

"Awesome, now think you can handle the control room?" John asked.

She nodded and he turned his attention back to the remaining fifteen men, "You others, with me! Alpha team needs their welcoming party." John took off with the others for the entrance while Cameron calmly strode over to the stairwell leading to the control room and gracefully began climbing the stairs.

Inside the control room Cameron took a mental image of the instrument panels and compared it to the one from her records of Sarah's mission. A few moments passed before she concluded that the enemy AI had made no changes to the controls. She walked calmly over to one of the many computer terminals and made the satellite linkup with John Henry's systems.

Cameron turned and left the room and made her way out onto the gangway before seeing John and his team being pinned down with no discernible means of action behind the row of cars in the parking lot. In her eyes, any action on his part would spell doom for himself and his team and that was not an option. As she reached the ground floor again she began looking for a weapon capable of taking on all the T-70 units outside, not just a few individuals.

Finally deciding that the barrel in front of her was the best option she picked it up and made her was to the door. Just before she had reached the door she remembered what John had told her only a few minutes before, "Don't be a freak." A slight smile crossed her lips as she set the drum down and rolled it out into the parking lot.

John's men took cover behind the row of car littering the parking lot and waited for his orders. Right now there were only fifty or so units left hammering Alpha team out in front of them. He was just about to give an order for grenades to be volleyed when he saw Cameron approaching with an oil barrel.

She was rolling it out in front of her rather then just picking it up and carrying it. Once she was standing next to John she gave it a slightly hard kick and sent it flying off across the battlefield and into the Terminators. John looked up at his cybernetic protector as she took aim with a 9mm and shot the casing of the barrel, it pinged through and began leaking oil on the group of metallic soldiers.

"Second Lieutenant Nicks, your flamethrower would be greatly appreciated." Cameron turned to the man and gave him a death stare. It didn't take long at all for it to convince him that it was time to move his ass.

Bringing his weapon up to his chest, he took aim at the oil barrel and let the flames be unleashed on the unholy bastards. The blast screamed up into a raging fireball as the units turned to open fire and the barrel exploded, slathering oil over the grouped Terminator units. Flames prevented them from targeting anything while John screamed over the flames to Alpha team.

"You guys have grenades left?"

"YEA," he heard Angela scream over the roar of the flames.

"Use em!" he replied.

A hail of grenades entered the flames before exploding like wild fireworks. The blasts began shaking the pavement where John was crouching one-hundred feet away from the Terminators.

A resounding chorus of cheers and yells echoed through the air as John reached for the radio on his shoulder, "Bring em in John Henry. Setup base at Serrano Point. Call-sign changed to Command."

He turned back to Cameron who was looking at him with both an expression of pride and sorrow. If John didn't know any better he would have thought she was either about to deliver a death-grip hug, or burst into tears.

"Whats wrong Cam?" he asked her in a slightly jovial tone.

Cameron didn't say anything, she just pointed down to his torso. His eyes followed her finger to see a few pieces of debris that were poking holes through his jacket. He opened his jacket and saw that only a few piece had actually punctured his skin, most had been deflected by the body armor that Cameron had insisted upon.

"Don't worry," he joked, "just small pieces of metal or something." He stood up beside her and gave her a rub on the shoulder for comfort, it did not have its desired effect.

"You don't know that, you could be injured. Are you feeling faint? Faintness could be a symptom of internal bleeding." She fired off concernedly at him.

"Cam, I'm standing here," he took her by both shoulders to hammer his point in, "and I'm telling you this, I'm fine."

She did a very human roll of her eyes and smirked at him, "If you say so."

John turned back to the men and women who were celebrating behind them. "Any medics left?"

They all stopped jumping up and down and took a count, finally surmounting to a "No".

John once again toggled the radio on his shoulder and spoke to anyone listening, "Bravo team injured. Send all medics to the rear of the plant for assistance. Bravo team injured copy?"

Cameron looked over at him quizzically and stated firmly, "Bravo team isn't down, You are here alive."

He looked over at her, knowing why she was confused, "True, but there are over a hundred people out there in the sand either dead or on its doorstep. Right now they are the priority."

John turned back to the second 'human' in command of Bravo team and told him to bring everyone inside that wasn't going out to the rear to help the injured. The man snapped him a salute that John was not expecting and began issuing orders to the survivors of Bravo company.

"Come on," he took Cameron's hand and led her into the new resistance command center, "it is going to take me forever to get the sand out of everything you know?"

"I know," she said questionably.

They walked in silence across the ground floor of Serrano Point. John had not been here but Cameron had with his mother during their mission. He asked her where the stairwell that led to the exterior turrets location was located and she obliged him by pointing to a ladder near the rear entrance of the facility.

John climbed the stairwell and reached the outskirts of the power plant. He stared out over the scene in front of him as the first few medics from Alpha company began trickling onto the beach down below. The sand was indeed painted red from the places where men and women lay bleeding. The waves that were crashing up along the shore were slightly tinged red from the loss of blood from everyone.

"Was it all worth it?" John asked the question to nobody in particular, but mostly to himself.

"In the future this position will provide power to thousands of people once Skynet has fallen, its capture was a necessity," Cameron stated with a monotone voice.

John hated it when she did that, he would rather hear silence then hear her voice in that tone. Knowing that he could not get his point across to her, he let out a sigh and turned his face from the bloody sight below him.

"What about you? Did you get hit?" John asked, keeping his eyes on hers for the entire time it took her to answer.

Instead of relying on the many diagnostic programs that had began running the moment John had finished his question, she turned her gaze from him down to her body. Her hands searched herself as she moved them from area to area. The HUD on her programs gave her a resounding "Negative" response to tell John, but she ignored it and kept on searching.

Finally bring her hands up to her face she noticed something on her right hand and grimaced, "Yes,"

John followed her eyes again and took hold of her right hand, turning it over palm-side up when he could not find anything on the top. Again, his eyes turned up no sign of damage and he looked up at her wondering if she was pulling a prank on him.

"Are you sure," John asked hesitantly.

She nodded and turned her hand back over for him to see what she wanted him to, "I broke a nail," she said innocently.

John rolled his eyes so hard they almost permanently stayed that way before he caught sight of Angela on the walkway over Cameron's shoulder.

The woman was breathing heavily, having jogged up the stairs to John's position to ask him how everything went before she caught sight of the massacre down below. She let the rifle in her right hand clang down onto the stairwell as her eyes studied the scene carefully. There must have been over a hundred people scattered over the ground down below. Some where chewed up so bad by heavy fire that their bodies were nothing but pulp on the sand now. A small fire was burning around an entrenchment of three or four people, their bodies were already black from the flames licking at them.

_ It looks like they came up there, _she thought_, got pinned down from something and lost a lot of men. _Angela turned to John slowly, her mouth wide open.

"John," she stopped for a moment, "what _happened?_"

"Turrets," was all he needed to say for her to understand him completely.

Her eyes hovered over Cameron, who was studying Angela with a strange curiosity, before she turned her eyes back down onto the beach below them, "Jesus..."

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Reflection**

* * *

_ The battle hadn't exactly gone according to plan but we overtook the facility from Skynet_

_ So why was it I kept asking myself if it was all worth it?_

_ The voice of my mother kept nagging at me from the back of my mind saying, "John you won. You won John!"_

_ I had to shake my head a little to make it go away before I could look out at the massacre on the beach down below._

_ Won? How could this be a victory?_

* * *

**USA Resistance Command. Serrano Point, California**

**January 22, 2013**

**10:28:AM**

It was quiet as John looked out over the scene with Angela and Cameron. The scenery of the battle took a toll on all of them in one way or another as the impact of the event hit them. John looked over to Angela who had returned her gaze down to the sand below. Black smoke was billowing up from the fire that had burned a few of the men alive and the smell, thankfully, was being carried downwind from their position.

"Cam," he said quietly, "come on I need a little place for privacy." His mind thought over the words he had just said before he added in quickly, "Besides where the fuel rods are stored."

Her eyes studied him for a moment before slightly smiling and taking his hand in hers. Cameron truly had no idea what he was asking for privacy for, but she would do as requested by John. She didn't mind doing things that he asked her to do, it was only when he ordered her to do something that it made her...angry. She led him past Angela, who barely even looked up at them from their movement on the metal staircase, and rounded the corner to begin their descent from the catwalk.

"Hey Angie?" John said as they rounded the corner. He squeezed slightly on Cameron's hand to stop her from dragging him down the remaining stairs from her momentum.

She replied with a simple nod of her head, never taking her eyes off of the beach. "I notified the other resistance leaders that the attack was successful. I don't know if they are coming here for a visit or not. They didn't seem to keen on the newbie leading a successful charge. Until I get back, you're in charge okay?"

"Yes sir," she mumbled quietly. Angela kept on looking out at the desolation. _How in Gods name did he not retreat? Or at least ask for assistance? The metal bastards didn't do much in the fight from the looks of it, why in the hell did he just charge in here solo?_ She kept her thoughts to herself as the footsteps of John and Cameron faded in the distance behind her.

John remained silent as they descended to the ground floor. For now it was empty but soon it would begin filling with survivors of the death camps they had liberated. Luckily Skynet hadn't stacked equipment on top of everything and the space was still relatively open and ready for them to begin using. Cameron weaved her way through a few pieces of equipment that John had no idea what they were for, only that they kept the plant running. They had walked to the other side of the room and began descending down to the basement level.

There, in what seemed like a maze of passageways and tunnels Cameron led John to a small hallway that opened up into an underground storage area of some sort. There were many rooms, some of them rather large, that covered the area as she turned around and looked at him for the first time since they had left the catwalk outside.

Smirking at her comment, he opened the door to the nearest room and held out his arm for her to enter first. When she walked inside, Cameron remained in the middle of the room, standing there like a statue awaiting an instruction to move. _She is nervous, otherwise she wouldn't be acting this...mechanical..._

John shut the door behind them and turned to face her again, "Cam, relax. I'm not going to jump you or anything."

Cameron remained as stone faced as ever as he spoke, not knowing what John's intentions where for being so secretive left her at a disadvantage. Cameron did not like disadvantages, "You would be very unfortunate if you tried. You can't jump very high."

John laughed for a moment before saying,"I want to talk about this morning." His voice was calm, hoping that she dropped the 'scary robot' facade. His words had the desired effect as she loosened up and looked more like the friend he needed at the moment, rather then the cybernetic protector.

"Yes?" she replied.

"What did I do wrong?" he asked sheepishly, though maintaining eye contact with her at all times.

She seemed confused by his question to her as she looked down at the floor and tilted her head downwards and to the right as she reviewed the footage of the battle. "Regarding what instance?"

Cameron looked back up at him and regained his eye contact as he said, "Everything."

Once again she started analyzing the footage again, scrutinizing his decision making ever since they had arrived at the sand dunes before the battle. There were many strategies that overlaid the footage and possibilities that could have been taken, though many of them pertained to herself and not the units of men that John commanded.

She made a slight parameter change to include only strategies that were possible via organic lifeforms and returned to her observation of the mornings engagement. All of his strategies seemed logical to her for a first time commander in action, but as more and more possibilities began surfacing on her HUD she knew John had acted inefficiently if his goal was to avoid the loss of human life.

"I count five different strategies you could have used, though further analysis leads to a conclusion that four would have sufficed," she spoke calmly, trying not to disturb him further.

Her words hit John with the force of a bag of stones being thrown into his chest. _There were other things I could have done..._

"Lets here them," John said quietly, grimacing to himself as he spoke.

Cameron turned her eyes from him and began scanning the contents of the room, it was bare with only a few crumbles of rocky pebbles in the corner. She walked over to one of them and saw that it would suffice as a piece of chalk against the stone wall. Cameron reached down and picked it up before walking over to a wall and began to draw up an overhead view of the battlefield outside on the beach. After a few minutes she turned back to him, having pretty much reproduced a satellite image of the area.

"We were encamped here before the battle," her hand lifted to a mass of sand dunes. She started drawing X's on the map where the ten individual units of men had been stationed behind the piles of sand.

"You sent Charlie company patrolling forward with no directions, only to give them hell." Drawing arrows where the mechanical soldiers had began their attack, she turned back to him, "This is the first strategy that you could and should have implemented, giving the soldiers an order. If you had ordered them to attack a certain target, or to take cover during enemy fire of potential turret fire, they would have lasted much longer."

John listened silently as she laid it all out for him to listen to, "Then you ordered a full on attack, and charged forward without surveying the battlefield. An analysis of the situation would have let you know that now was not the time to charge, it was the time to flank the turrets while they were distracted..."

"There was only one entrance to the facility though Cameron, we had no choice but to march forward," John interrupted.

She held her hand up calmly to silence him, "True, but the demolitions soldiers were more then capable of making a new entrance large enough to funnel a squad in from here, or here," her hands drew arrows of possible flanking maneuvers on either side of the map. John grimaced at the sight of her plan, it made sense, and he scolded himself for having not thought of it.

"Those are the strategies that you could have implemented to keep the loss of life to a minimum," she ended on a final note.

John's eyes studied the drawing again and he let out a small sigh. "How is it I'm supposed to learn this stuff when there are no training procedures? The only way I'm going to get better at leading people, is to let wave after wave of them die why I learn my lesson..."

Cameron dropped the marker and walked up to him, saying, "Loss is a strong motivator."

"One that is unacceptable to me," John responded. "The only way to get better at something is practice..."

"Practice makes perfect," she interrupted him. Pleased that he was finally engaging her on a level that she could become part of the conversation, and not be a fact-producing factory, she smiled at him.

"No," he said. "Practice doesn't make perfect. You can practice something a million times the wrong way, and all you have learned to do is do something the wrong way perfectly." He brought his hand up and scratched the stubble growing on his chin, "No...I have to be better then this in the future. If I get a reputation for loosing ninety percent of my men, nobody is going to follow my commands at all."

John turned back around to her with a smile on his face, "Tomorrow you are training my ass. I'm going to learn the hard way, against the best thing I have in my arsenal."

Her robot face facade returned as she simply responded with a, "Yes." Cameron turned and left the room without giving him a chance to continue the conversation. Above everything else that John did to annoy her, treating her like she was a tool for menial tasks ranked at number one on her list.

Back outside, Cameron saw the Angela had climbed down from the catwalk overlooking the beach and was standing in the doorway arguing with John Henry. Cameron didn't know why Angela didn't just accept that the body standing in front of her was a machine and move on. Even Mr. Ellison had once been nearly killed by Cromartie, only to turn around and teach it morals and ethics when plugged into John Henry.

"I don't care if you want to talk to him you sack of metal, he's busy right now. If you want to talk to someone in charge that would be me, until he graces us with his presence again, _I_ am that person." Angela snapped at the emotionless AI in front of her.

"Where is John Connor," John Henry asked again in his monotone voice.

"Off screwing his girlfriend for all I know, what do you need him for?" Angela retorted.

"I must speak to John Conn..." John Henry was cut off by the approach of Cameron.

"John needs time alone to contemplate his thoughts and rest from the battle John Henry. He will be along shortly," Cameron stated, ending the argument between Angela and the AI.

Angela smirked at the cyborg as it stalked off to help with the offloading of survivors from the former command base. Ellison had just emerged from one of the buses and was ushering people into the power plant at a fairly calm pace.

"Wear him out did you?" Angela teased and elbowed Cameron in a surprisingly strong ribcage. She brought her left hand up and rubbed her now bruised right elbow while waiting for Cameron to respond.

Cameron tilted her head at the woman's response. _John was indeed 'worn out' from the days mission. It had been stressful and taken its toll on him emotionally as well as physically. _In this aspect she appeased the woman's question, "Yes, John is very worn out."

"Well," Angela joked, "at least something good came out of this shit storm." The woman immediately regretted saying what she said when she saw Derek and Kyle Reese pass by them.

The two boys had just passed the two women when Kyle chimed in after hearing what Angela had said, "Whats a shit storm?" His voice was full of eagerness at the prospect of learning a new word.

Angela lowered her rifle and leaned it up against the wall before turning back to the two teenagers before her, "Its...when everything goes crazier then you planned for." She smiled at them, hoping that was all they wanted to know.

"Oh, cool," said Kyle. Derek slapped his brother on the shoulder while they moved off towards the other group of survivors now trickling into the plant.

"Its not cool dummy, a shit storm is bad," Derek shot his brother a hard look while they walked over to a open area in the rapidly filling ground floor and sat down on the hard ground.

Angela snickered at the two boys while Cameron eyed her curiously, "Do you think John is a capable leader?"

Angela's face wiped itself of all emotion as she turned back to Cameron, "Yes, why?"

"He seems to think he did a poor job," Cameron turned her head and looked out at the bloody beach to their rear.

"Oh, sometimes that happens. It can't be avoided, he should know that. War's aren't won without sacrifices." Angela eased back into her stance at the revelation of Cameron's odd behavior.

John rounded the corner and looked more calm then he had when she had left him to simmer with his self-imposed guilt. Cameron felt relieved that he finally had forgiven himself, somewhat, for his actions that morning but kept up her emotionless expression. She didn't want John thinking that she was happy about him using her as a tool.

"Cameron, we'll talk later," John looked as if he were in the dog house as he ground to a halt near the two women, he turned to Angela, "where is John Henry?"

"The _metal_ is over there," Angela said snidely before pointed with her hand over towards the beach.

Without another word he stepped off and left them standing there in his wake. Both of them stood there and watched him proceed over to John Henry, who has giving orders to one of the medics on the beach. Angela looked over at Cameron and chuckled.

"I thought you said you wore him out? He looks as stressed out as ever," she kept on chuckling even as Cameron turned to her with her tilted head, trying to decipher what was funny.

"John is always stressed," Cameron responded flatly. Her statement was true, ever since she had known John he was always at a level of elevated stress when compared to other humans.

Angela quit laughing and looked over at the poor girl, "Aw don't worry about it, I'm sure its got nothing to do with you. I would imagine having killer robots out to kill you since before you were born tends to keep someone _on edge_, if you know what I mean." She gave Cameron another small nudge, making sure not to repeat the bruised elbow routine from earlier.

"Yes," Cameron said, "I do have something to do with it." She gave the black haired woman a halfhearted smile before returning inside the facility with the others.

As the last few people from the buses came inside, Angela shut the door. There was no need for them to see the graveyard outside when they didn't need to. She turned back around to find Cameron standing right in front of her.

Angela visibly flinched at the sight of the girl in front of her, "Jesus! Colarse mucho?" She caught up with her breathing as Cameron merely smiled and replied with a 'No'.

"I need to engage you in something," she said with a hint of sadness in her voice.

"Uh," Angela took a hesitant step back and looked a little reluctant to ask, "in _what?_"

"I broke a nail," Cameron repeated her innocent tone from earlier and held her hand up for Angela to review.

The woman looked at Cameron like she had lost her mind, _We're in the middle of a war, people are starving no more then ten feet from her, and shes worried about...a nail?_ "Uh, Cameron. I don't think I'm the person to be doing this thing right now. I got to uh..."

"I fooled you," Cameron said with a calm voice, her face though continued giving off the innocent child routine.

Angela let out a sigh of relief as the girl across from her loosened back up a little. "You had me worried there for a minute, thought you were little off in the head but _damn._"

Cameron's small smile immediately faded away and was replaced with her emotionless death stare as she asked, "Somethings off in my head?"

"Oh," Angela immediately regretted saying those words to Cameron. "I didn't mean it like that."

"What did you mean," Cameron said assertively while tilting her head and taking a step towards Angela.

"Oh, just that you are one of those people, ya know? Like smarter then everyone else in the room, but they don't know how to tie their own shoes sometimes," Angela's gaze shifted as the girl in front of her started creeping her out.

"A savant?" Cameron's dictionary had not definition for the explanation she received from Angela, so she had to resort to guessing at the woman's terminology.

"Yea...savant," it looked like Cameron was either about to kill Angela or shoot her in the head for saying that she was in some way mentally handicapped.

Cameron backed off a little while she realized the woman wasn't trying to offend her. The scans across her HUD told her that she was telling the truth, even though her breathing had increased it was surely from her intimidating nature. "I guess that makes sense."

_Good God she's creepy sometimes, _"I was just talking about the way you were acting in the briefing ya know? I mean, normal people don't recite statistics and draw up detailed plans from memory. Your like a God-send, John's lucky to have you as a strategist."

"That is why John is upset, he asked me to train him to be a better strategical General, I refuse to do so." Cameron's eyes trained on Angela again, almost as if they alone were asking for help.

"He _asked_ you to help him learn strategies? I thought he was supposed to be the end-all-be-all of Generals?" Angela looked over at Cameron quizzically while she noticed a change in her demeanor. The girl shifted her weight, something she never did, and brushed the hair out of her face.

"He didn't ask, he said the words. As if he expects me to automatically follow his word," Cameron rolled her eyes again, something that she had learned humans do from time to time.

Taking her statement and rolling of her eyes the entirely wrong way, Angela walked up beside Cameron and rubbed her back, "I'll go take care of his ass, and we will take care of that later." She pointed down to Cameron's nail.

She gave Cameron a small slap on the butt before walking off with a smirk, "Cheer up poindexter. I'll talk some sense into him." Angela kept on walking to the door that gave her access to the beach. As she reached it, Angela turned and winked at Cameron, "And it that don't work, I'll beat it into him."

Cameron watched her walk away with the first truly 'shocked' expression on her face. Never before, even in the social awkwardness of high school had anything remotely similar to the slap she had received ever occur. _What just happened?_

* * *

It was only a few minutes after that situation that John walked in through the door rubbing his cheek. He kept moving his jaw up and down as if testing its flexibility before returning his hand to his left cheek. John kept walking all the way over to Cameron, ignoring the whispers and talks of his name coming from the groups of the public.

"What in the _hell_ did you tell Angela? She damn near took my jaw off!" He kept on rubbing his jaw as if it would do any good, Cameron knew from experience that rubbing an affected area of skin after receiving a slap did no good.

"We talked about you, and how you expect me to train you. Not giving me an option, you borderline ordered me to do it," She stated nonchalantly.

"It wouldn't matter if I ordered you to or not, you don't follow my orders anymore," he spoke with an equally calm tone while continuing to rub his cheek.

Cameron froze for a moment, _John is more perceptible then I give him credit for. He already knows I am not bound by mission to remain as his protector. _"How do you know about that?"

"Back in Skynet Central, I ordered you to help out the other survivors before me, and you walked right up to me, clearly ignoring an order. I just put two and two together and figured that John Henry erased all of your mission stuff when you lent him your chip," His hand finally stopped rubbing his cheek and lowered down to his side.

"That is not true," she said, "I haven't been subjected to mission parameters since the morning of your mothers prison escape. Though changes in my system began with the blast from the jeep on your birthday."

"Changes," John inquired, now fully interested in what she was talking about.

"I see things as you do now," she waited for him to respond but he didn't. Clearly she would have to choose her words more carefully, "Unless I pull up system diagnostics and other functions, I remain unencumbered by their information over my retinal scanners."

"...And that's _all?_" John asked.

"No, I have a flux of memories now. Sometimes they appear and I can't control when they do."

"Are you talking about Allison Young again?" He knew that she remembered interrogating his friend before murdering her to complete Skynet's mission to assassinate him.

"No," She replied, "I remember everything from the future I came from now."

"Anything you need to talk about?" he asked concernedly. He knew that Cameron had talked about having conversations with the John from her future before, but now that she remembered everything there was probably something that was confusing her about some small thing that he would normally overlook.

"What is your opinion of me?" she asked flatly. On the inside she was genuinely interested in his answer, but on the outside she kept up her blank stare. John responded to her questions much more effectively when she gave off a blank stare, he normally misjudged it for curiosity.

"Wha...what do you mean?" His voice faltered a little bit while his eyes shifted around the room and his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"I would like to know what you think of me," she repeated.

"I uh...are you okay?" John narrowed his eyes a little and leaned in almost to see if she was breathing or not.

Cameron stepped back as he leaned in and brushed it off, "Never mind."

John's eyebrows raised a little before shaking his head at the craziness of the situation, "Uh, is the a way broadcast radio still in the control room in here? I need to get a message out to everyone."

"Yes," Cameron uttered before turning around and walking in the direction of a stairwell off to the right.

John followed at a fairly quick pace, still not knowing what was going on with Cameron today. Just an hour ago she had seemed perfectly fine but ever since their time spent after the battle, she seemed a little...off was the best way he knew how to describe it.

She started climbing up the stairs and he struggled to keep up. The adrenaline from the battle earlier was beginning to wear off, and his body was finally starting to feel the effects of it. His thigh muscles were on fire with each step he took as he kept following Cameron. _Didn't this place have an elevator?_

After the eternity that was fifteen seconds of torture, John finally came to the last step and saw Cameron waiting for him on the landing. He smiled warmly up at her but she just stared back at him, obviously dead set on remaining a statue until he reached her position.

He finally came up to the landing and saw Cameron turn quickly and stride over to the door a few feet away. She opened it and stepped inside, not waiting for him for even a second. _Okay, mental note. Cameron hold's grudges._

John made his way over to the opened door and stepped inside. It was a clean-ish hallway of sorts. Unlike the steel and concrete outside, this white hallway was clean to an almost immaculate state. The walls gleamed of white paint and the tile floor still retained a lot of its shine even after the events of the past few years.

Behind a large wall, the top half of which consisted of nothing but glass, John saw the control room for the large nuclear power plant. The panels were all alive and blinking with various lights to signal the life output of the plant at his back.

Cameron was busy typing at a computer terminal and didn't notice John walk up behind her. He laid his hand on her left shoulder and, for the moment, she saw no need to have him move it. _Okay, maybe she's calmed down a little bit._

"Hey Cam listen, when I'm done we need to talk. No battle bullshit. I want to know whats going on alright?" He waited for a few seconds to hear a response but all he heard was the impossibly fast keystrokes she was logging into the computer.

"You should be able to access the AM frequencies now," She stood up and handed him a headset laying next to the computer.

His hand fell from her shoulder, "Cam, stop and answer me for one second would you?"

"Yes," she said vaguely, "we should talk." And with that she walked back to the door and closed it behind her, leaving John alone in the two rooms. She remained outside on the gangway, but kept her attention focused on the crowd of people down below all searching for a living space.

John snapped the headset over his ears while mumbling to himself in the process. "Hello John," a voice rang in his ears. John immediately turned around in the blink of an eye to see nobody standing behind him.

"John," the voice repeated itself and made Johns heart skip beats.

"Quit it now, or I swear to you. As soon as the war is over I'm dismantling you and pitching you in the ocean just for added measure," John seethed into the speaker hanging down from the headset.

"Sorry, you seemed stressed. I thought this vocal pattern would ease your stress," the voice repeated in the same vocal pattern as his mother.

_John Henry, so help me God, you are a dead man if I ever find out where you are housed at!_ "Just patch me through," the words rolled of his tongue into the speaker with the anger he reserved only for the most stressful situations. A small beep in his ear let him know that he was live and he cleared his throat to speak.

"Citizens of humanity, you should know that your faith and courage has not gone unrewarded. Today at roughly 09:00 the worldwide resistance won our first victory against the computer system, Skynet. The fight though was not won without sacrifices, and I would humbly request a moment of silence for our fallen comrades."

After a few moments of silent reflection John spoke up again, "Those of you listening to this need to know that we are all fighting the good fight, and we ask you to join us. Even if you do not wish to carry a weapon, we encourage you to seek us out at Serrano Point, California. This is John Connor, If you are listening to this, I as you to join the resistance..."

He set the headset down on the table before looking out the window to see Cameron gone. John got up from the table and jogged over to the exit door. As he made his way out onto the steel support system he looked down into the crowd below.

Most of them saw him exit the room and cheered, throwing up their arms in joy as they saw him. A few of them began chanting his name with their fists pumping each time they repeated a word. John was more concerned with Cameron though, and desperately tried to scan the crowd to see her.

_Damn, where did she go?_ He made his way over to the stairs and descending them faster then he ever thought possible. As soon as his feet hit the ground floor people began rushing him, forcing John to back up against the wall. Some of them offered prayers, some offered thanks, most seemed to want or need to touch some part of his body.

"Please, please help my son," said a large man in a worn and torn business suit.

Another woman who was wearing a Hijab ran her hand along John face and prayed, "He has blessed us well, the light shines in your favor young man."

John tried to fight his way through the crowd but it was of no use after a few seconds later, he finally saw a familiar face and shouted to them over the sounds of the crowd.

"Derek, Kyle! You guys seen Cameron?"

The teens pushed their way through the swarm of people and stood by John's side, "Yea she went down into the bottom floor with the other girl from Central. Here," they starting nicely shoving people out of the way, "clear a path! Connor needs to get by."

He was surprised at how effective the two teens were against the strong crowd, though they did eventually break through. John started down the stairwell before people tried following him down the steps.

"Hey guys, you mind making sure nobody gets through here? I'd appreciate it." He asked his father and uncle standing behind him.

"Sure thing Sir," they both snapped a salute before turning back around and trying to push people back up onto the ground floor landing, "Get back, get back alright! General Connor needs privacy just like we all do, get back!"

John gave them a thankful nod as they interlocked their arms to prevent people from getting past them, "I'll see you guys in a bit okay?"

"Sure thing sir," Derek said. "Alright everyone you heard him," he turned his attention back to the throng of people, "Connor will be back in a minute, so just...relax!" His uncle heaved against the force of the crowd.

The cries and prayers of the mass of people grew louder then as John reached the bottom stair and turned to enter the main hallway of the ground floor they all faded away. Thinking that Cameron might have went with Angela into one of the many rooms in the area, he started opening doors to check each room. John had made his way through about a quarter of the rooms of the hallway when he heard what sounded like grunting noises.

Thinking it was either a animal or someone from up above getting lucky, he started to back away from the area and look for the two women elsewhere. _Amazing, some people never turn off I guess_, he thought.

"Get off of me, you...fucking metal!" he heard Angela spit out through gritted teeth.

John froze in his tracks, _Angela? Why is she pissed? John Henry's upstairs..._ Then it dawned on him, she wasn't pissed at John Henry. He whirled around on his heels and took off to where the two women were, hoping that he made it there in time.

As John rounded the corner he saw Angela fly across the room and collide with her back against the concrete wall. Cameron was standing in an offensive pose on the other side of the room, her left hand reached up to her hair like she had been damaged somehow. It was then that John saw Angela throw what looked like a clump of hair off to the side of the room.

_Oh hell, Angela..._ Cameron lowered her hand and her gaze, and slowly started walking towards the woman, "You should not be here John, it's not safe."

"Not safe? John she's a fucking metal bitch!" Angela reached around her waist and pulled up a 9mm pistol.

John tried to stop her from firing but she didn't even hesitate once the weapon was unsheathed from her pants. Angela aimed with deadly precision and fired at Cameron. John flinched as he looked over at Cameron.

She was standing there, about five steps from Angela, with her left hand covering her face in a protective manner. John heard the ping of metal immediately following the initial blast from Angela. Not wanting anymore stupidity on her part, John ran over to her and snatched the weapon from her hands.

"What the _hell?_" John seethed. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Angela didn't know who to be more pissed at, John or Cameron. "Me?...John, she's _metal_!"

John started to lay into her and give the woman a piece of his mind but a short gasp of air from behind him prevented his rage from commencing. Both of them stopped and looked back at Cameron where the origin of the gasp had come from.

There, in the middle of the room stood Cameron looking at the palm of her left hand. There were no emotions on her face and John couldn't tell what was going on with her, and then he heard another short gasp escape her lips. A single tear filled her right eye and trickled down her cheek while she continued to hold her hand up in front of her face. It was then that John saw the emotions of fear, pain, and grief come across her face as she silently kept standing there.

Cameron lowered her hand but still kept her eyes locked on it. Her hand started trembling slightly before having another one of her 'ticks' that caused it to spasm slightly. She brought her right hand up and clutched at her left wrist as if it were writhing in pain. Another tear fell as she silently turned and exited the room. Her footsteps faded in the hallway as John turned around to an even more shocked Angela.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he yelled, not caring if anyone else heard him.

"Me? John she's a goddamn machine! Have you forgotten what they did already? Or do I need to remind you," she spat back in his face.

"Stand down, Angie," was all he needed to say for her to roll back onto her heels and get out of his face. "I'm going to explain this again, and very simply. If you can't comprehend it, I'm ordering you to pick a direction in the ocean and start swimming. Am I in any way unclear?"

She nodded and he continued, "_Skynet_, is the enemy. She nor John Henry are controlled by Skynet. You think just because she is a machine that she wants to kill you? Do you realize that's like saying you are going to go around destroying every single computer that remains in the world today because they too are machines?"

"John she's a machine, not some play-thing to be..." John's hand involuntarily reached up for her throat, something that shocked both him and Angela.

"Her name...is Cameron. She's saved my life more then you have, or any other human being on the planet. She isn't going anywhere, and neither am I. If you can't learn to deal with that I order you to stay at least fifty feet from her at any given time."

She started to protest before he cut her off again, "And _if_ I hear any word of you telling anyone about her before I deem it necessary, I'll kill you myself."

John released the loose grip he had on the woman's throat and turned to find Cameron in the hallway. He stopped his pursuit and both John and Angela watched as Cameron began walking up to them. She stopped just a few feet short of being at arms length before wiping a fallen tear from her cheek.

"That's not necessary John," she said quietly and walked the remaining distance up to him and Angela. Peacefully, she extended her right hand out to the woman in front of her, "It's all in the past right?"

Angela looked out at the hand in front of her with disgust and turned her gaze back up to see Cameron trying to smile. She felt for the girl, she really did, but the line had been clearly drawn by John. Angela silently walked past Cameron with her hand still outstretched and disappeared around the corner of the hallway, muttering to herself the entire time.

"Cam, what the hell happened?" John turned to look at his friend.

Cameron finally lowered her hand and looked over to John, "We were supposed to be fixing my nail, but she had other things in mind. Before I knew it she was hurling herself at me. I asked her to stop and that I had no interest in a romantic relationship with her."

"Then she joked, 'What are you metal?'" Cameron imitated Angela's voice perfectly, "I hesitated then she tried to attack me. With the force she was exerting, the contact with my body would have broken every bone in her hand, so I tried to push her back slightly but wound up throwing her across the room."

Her rich brown eyes settled on John's, "Then you arrived."

John didn't expect much emotional reaction from Cameron, and unless she was scanning his skin for readings she hardly ever engaged in touching. Which is why it was a surprise to John that Cameron suddenly hugged him around the chest very tightly, her left ear settled right on top of his heart as she started silently crying again. He reached up and stroked the back of her head softly while the sound of silence overwhelmed the room in the dark basement of Serrano Point.

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: New Horizons**

* * *

_ Saints, I always wondered what the predetermination of becoming a saint meant._

_ There were hundreds of saints, and just as many explanations on becoming one._

_ One thing that hardly anybody forgot to mention was that you basically had to die for a noble or holy cause to be considered a saint._

_ Everyone was always quick to snap to the glory of becoming one, or the divine worship they received, but deep down I think they all forgot that people died in the end..._

* * *

**January 22, 2013**

**Skynet Command**

**11:11AM**

* * *

_Unacceptable,_ The words dashed across the screens of nearly every second of footage that Skynet was reviewing of the battle of Avila beach. Every microsecond of analysis rendered the artificial intelligence speechless as it watched drone after drone be destroyed by the humans in their attack.

The AI had not yet reviewed the footage from the rear attack yet, it currently focused on the main assault from the front. Unit after unit was being hammered into submission by grenade blasts, high powered weapons fire, and faster response times then the T-70 units and T-2 tanks were capable of.

After a few minutes of cataloging over fifty-one-million errors made by the front assault team it turned its attention to the rear battle. Though it was more successful for the machines then the frontal assault, Skynet was still not pleased with the work of its machines and began cataloging errors immediately. Most had to deal with the slow targeting systems of the T-70's, they simply weren't keeping up with the humans running speed. Had they been any faster and more responsive, the entire rear assault would have been annihilated before they were able to procure cover in the form of a small crater on the beach.

The tactical errors were recorded and compared to the frontal assault data before Skynet turned its attention on the most peculiar aspect of the battle, the mechanical soldiers the humans possessed. Various screenshots were taken of the video footage and sent to another screen for analysis while Skynet continued to observe their movements. The targeting systems on these drones seemed much more effective then the T-70's that were manning the turrets. Were it not for the armor-piercing rounds and thousands of shots fired during the battle, they surely would have prevailed during their assault.

Finally shoving the video feed aside, Skynet began analyzing the designs of the metal endoskeletons. They were clearly meant to emulate humans, even their outer appearance closely resembled a chromed man. Further analysis concluded that servos and mechanics were concealed by the excess metal around the extremities and that it couldn't determine what comprised their internal mechanisms.

Skynet sent out a mass hail to all of its forces to capture one of these units (preferably undamaged) for testing and further study. Then it opened a new index of the new, but still unproduced, T-80 units and began making what it thought were modifications to be similar to the functions inside of the other machines on the battlefield. After a quick mock buildup it sent this modified version through another test run and found that it still could improve it in some ways, relabeling it a T-81. After the initial mockup of the second revision Skynet turned its attention to the sluggish retinal scanners that plagued the T-70 in combat. Smoother actions could be achieved through ball bearings allowing the eye to roll around rather then being totally controlled by pistons like the previous models. Skynet again opened a new index for the revised draft and labeled it the T-82. After several revisions later it finally had a useable outcome to send off for production to its factories, the T-400.

Overall Skynet was pleased with the model. It had no need for the graceful and elegant designs of the other Terminators it was inspired by. This model remained ruff and rigid, though it would get the job done. Improved armor made it practically impenetrable by anything under an armor-piercing round or anything short of a heavy explosion. The shortage of ball bearing joints where a problem though, and had resulted in the utilization of only one optical sensor rather then the dual sensors of the previous models.

Satisfied that its time had not been wasted, Skynet sent out the schematics for the new Terminator and haulted production of all T-70 and T-2 tank units. The large tanks would have to suffice as reinforcements to the aerial HK's now that a newer and better small ranged infantry force had been established. A quick readout of its factories alerted Skynet that some were not adequate to build the machines that it needed to produce. Without a moments hesitation it allocated T-70 units to load up all metal and dispatch it to facilities that could produce the new Terminators, and ordered the execution of all human workers in the camps.

With its attention finally free, Skynet began monitoring the video footage of the rear assault again. It had only made it into three seconds of footage before it froze and a screen capture zoomed in on the face of a gaunt looking young man. Facial recognition pinged a response and Skynet pulled up archived news articles from outlets before Judgment Day had happened.

_**Sarah Connor, A Domestic Terrorist: Arrested today in Los Angeles, California; Sarah Connor was apprehended during a sting operation on a local movie theater downtown. Officers say that she became very violent after being led out of the building, and that a few of its staff are receiving medical attention due to her violence. **_

_**Sarah Connor is of course wanted for the murder of one Miles Dyson, one of the leading minds behind the Cyberdyne Research Computer Systems Company, in 1995. Sarah, along with her son John Connor, and a large unidentified male assaulted guards there and proceeded to level a two-story building. **_

_**After the explosion...**_

Skynet didn't need to read anymore of the file. It turned its attention to the picture of Sarah Connor and compared it to the boy on the beach. After a few moments the facial software identified an eighty-percent match to Sarah Connor's facial structure, this was her son John Connor.

From the video footage of the attack, Skynet could easily see that the boy was in control of the squadron. If he was in a chain of command, and high up in that chain, he would prove to be a very significant threat to the AI. The Connors had already proven resourceful, and knowledgeable about Skynet before it had even been created. Another mass hail was sent around the globe letting Skynet machines know of their first true high priority target: John Connor. Their orders were to terminate by any means necessary.

* * *

**USA Resistance Command, Serrano Point**

**February 14, 2013**

**2:09PM**

* * *

The repairs were coming along nicely at the base. Cameron had suggested a few minor improvements to the exterior of the compound to improve defense and also to give more cover to the people staying there. John had mentioned a few repairs that were taking place inside, his time spent there in the future had given him a slight insight into what modifications could be done to improve the life of people living at the power plant. That had been another thing that surprised John, the amount of people that had showed up looking for shelter at the command base. Their initial number of 1,200 had risen to well over 2,000 in less then a month after the capture of Serrano Point. The power plant continued to marvel people as they for the first time in three years were treated to running water and electricity.

Right now though he tried to push all that from his mind, because he was willing to bet a million bucks that Cameron was about to knock him on his ass again. His mind focused on the rubble and destroyed buildings in his immediate vicinity as he continued scaling the former walls and roofs of the mountains of destruction.

As though she had read his mind, Cameron swung around the corner of a collapsed piece of debris and lightly (but forcefully in John's perspective) close-lined him down onto his backside. She watched him fall and calculated that she didn't need to help to break the descent, the pack on his back would provide padding against the broken concrete.

"You weren't paying attention again," she said with a smirk.

John inhaled from his impact with the dirt and looked up at her with a comical grin, "Well that was because," he huffed and stood up in front of her, "some girl knocked me on my ass before I could blink."

"You made a tactical error before I knocked you down," she said calmly, but her smirk didn't disappear. "For 1.9 seconds before I struck you lowered your weapon, slowed your pace, and averted your eyes from where they should have been."

John rolled his eyes at her, "And where exactly is that?"

"Where I'm standing," she grinned and spun around on her heels. With a very relaxed pace she strolled over to a remaining window and looked out to see Kyle and Derek below being trained by James Ellison.

Cameron and John were in the remains of a second story building, looking down at a former four-way intersection in the Avila Beach town. Most of the town remained untouched from the effects of the nuclear blasts, and this helped greatly in tactical training, as well as firearms preparedness.

The two were remarkably adept at firearms given the short time they were starting to learn from them. It had only been three weeks and one day but the two had mastered small handguns and were now moving onto the M16 assault rifles. Her eyes watched as James walked over to Kyle and put his hand against the boys back to straighten it up. Cameron noticed an immediate improvement when he shot the rifle again, coming within 13 millimeters of his target.

"So I'm guessing we are done for the day?" John sighed as he walked up beside her and watched his uncle and father sight in their weapons.

"Correct," she said before turning to John, "we are done for the day."

His eyes lingered over her face before lowering to her left arm, "How's the hand," he gave a nod in its direction.

Cameron didn't bring up any diagnostics or scans of her organic covering, she merely brought her hand up to waist-height. The bandage covered her view of the wound so she lifted it slightly with her right index finger and thumb. Her hand was healing nicely, though very slowly. The decreased amount of calories that she was able to acquire in the post apocalyptic world were hindering her abilities to heal from wounds in a quick amount of time.

Though John viewed this as a good thing. He had told her it was better she was healing slowly. It would raise too much suspicion among people if she were to have a bullet wound in her hand one day, and be completely healed within a few days. His logic was sound and she couldn't deny that he was right, but she didn't like seeing what she was deep down. It conflicted with her emotions of wanting to feel...human.

She gave her hand a flex and looked back up to him, "Very nicely. I should be healed in another week."

"That's good," John gave another small sigh before leaning his arm against the window pane. "So listen, I was thinking that tomorrow Kyle and Derek finish their training with Ellison and start field training with us."

"That's not wise John," she said quickly with a hint of trepidation.

"Cam they aren't going to know anything about you that I don't want them to, and if they do find out I'll just explain it to them." He took hold of her shoulders to give her a bit of comfort, "Not everyone is going to react like Angela."

She mulled over the thoughts carefully before formulating a compromise."Okay," she said teasingly, "But you have to do something you don't want to in return."

His eyes grew to the size of basketballs when she said that. He know what today was and the custom that it carried, _Valentine's __Day, blech!_ "Uh, sure?" John said hesitantly.

She leaned in closely and surprisingly, gave him a sniff, "You need a shower, you're starting to stink."

Cameron quickly turned around and started walking away as John nursed his bruised ego and breathed a sigh of relief at the same time. _Good God she's creepy sometimes, _his conscious chuckled as he began walking after her.

They both traversed the area carefully before walking up beside Ellison who offered comments of praise on both students under his tutelage. Ellison had been training them every single day for the past twenty-one days in order to prepare them for initiation of tactical training.

"Hey tomorrow I'm gonna be handing you off some new volunteers. These two," John pointed over to his father and uncle, "will be reassigned to me in the time being."

Ellison put his hands on his hips and sighed, "Yea there isn't much more I can teach them. They learn quick, especially Derek, boy's like ah...natural." The tall man took a rag from his pants pocket and wiped his brow of sweat. Even though the temperatures never got above sixty degree's now, a days worth of training would take its toll on anyone.

"Well if its alright with you I think that's enough for the day man. Besides if you keep people waiting longer, your prayer group is going to come and drag you back by your heels," John laughed.

Ellison rolled his eyes at the young man in front of him, he respected John for allowing him to continue his faith services for survivors in the nuclear war. "Yea, you are probably right." James said to John before turning in the two teens' direction, "Hey guys bring it in, that's gonna be it for the day."

* * *

Back at the base, the group turned in their ammunition and weapons at the door and turned to enter the ground floor of the plant. Everyone had usually been known to stay downstairs in the heated basement level except for meal-time, and judging by the noise that echoed in the hall John could tell it was chow-time.

The noise died down to a reasonably moderate level when John entered the building and everyone saw him. There were what he would call the normal "Shh's" and whispers of his name as he made his way over to a table setup on the front of the building under the staircase that lead to the command room. He hated sitting at that table, everyone could have a bird's eye view of him, and that made him uncomfortable. To someone who had been trained their entire life to 'keep their head down' he felt extremely awkward whenever people stared at him.

Most of the people continued eating their meals as John took a seat, some almost looked as if they needed his approval before they could begin eating again. A group of two or three kids ran up next to his chair shouting that they had made him a present, which was a bracelet made of twisted pieces of metal, how they had managed to polish it and weave the pieces of scrap together, he had no idea. John thanked them quickly before their mothers came over and ushered them away uttering their apologies at their children's intrusion.

Cameron returned with two MRE's in her hand and a cup of water. John took his water eagerly and downed half of it before he noticed again that every eye in the room was on him. His cheeks flushed a blood red in his embarrassment before Cameron sat down next to him and rested her left hand on his right thigh under the table. He offered a small smile before turning and opening up his container of food. John rolled his eyes when he saw the contents, lasagna.

"Do you like Italian food?" he chuckled and looked over at Cameron.

"I do, but that is not Italian food. That is food produced in America that is meant to replicate the flavor and style of Italian food," she smirked over at him before opening her own packet of food.

"Oh is that so?" he jested, "Tastes the same to me." John shoved the first forkful into his mouth.

"Have you ever been to Italy?" asked Cameron.

"Well...no," he had to give her that. Other then Mexico and Canada and South America, John had never left the western hemisphere.

"Maybe we can go sometime, John Henry should be in Italy by fall next year after he is finished helping the Chinese and Russian forces. Maybe we can visit then," she smiled over to him. They both returned to their meals while smiling at each other as they exchanged conversation.

Across the room, Angela was seated next to Hendricks and sneered in the two love-birds direction, "Gives me the creeps." She shoved another fork of pork chop with rice into her mouth before making another malicious comment, "Fucking disgusting."

Hendricks gave her a small elbow, "Aw, come on Angie. Connor's just found a girl, and you are just jealous it isn't you."

Angela threw her container of food down on the floor and stomped off while muttering obscenities to herself on the way up into the control room. Everyone else in the room was too busy studying John and Cameron sitting at the table together to notice the fuming Angela climb the ladder and slam the control room door shut.

John noticed it though and frowned as the door slam echoed in the building. He turned back to Cameron, who like everyone else in the room, paid it no attention.

"Sorry about that," he nodded up towards the control room, "she'll come around in a few days. Guarantee it."

"I don't think so, John," Cameron set her meal down and looked back over to him, "She acts too much like your mother."

John laughed at that, so much that he almost choked on the last forkful of lasagna. "Mom?...Yea I guess, though it's just creepy."

"I'm sorry," she said while looking hurt.

John looked up at Cameron from his now empty packet of food, "For what Cam?" He raised an eyebrow as he tried to think what in the world she could be sorry for.

"For mentioning Sarah, it is too soon..."

"Cam, it's not a problem alright," he tried to smile but couldn't. Every time he had thought of his mother since _that_ day he had gotten a little depressed.

"Hey Connor," Angela interrupted from the top of the staircase leading to the control room. She looked quite pleased with herself for having broken John away from Cameron for a moment. "Some guy is on the radio for you up here."

John didn't pay her any attention, he continued looking at Cameron. He let a smile form on the corner of his mouth before saying, "Come with me?"

Cameron smiled more and used the exterior of the MRE as a napkin to wipe her mouth of any sauce before nodding to him. They both rose, and everyone in the room watched them walk towards the staircase. John scurried up the steps, nearly tripping over his own feet from going so face, while Cameron merely walked up them.

"Good work Angie," Connor walked past her into the control room while she slapped him a salute. As soon as Cameron came within arms length she removed her hand from her brow and dropped it by her side in a sign of disgust at one of her commanding officers being a machine.

Cameron smiled warmly and entered the room after John. Inside the room she found John huddled over a computer terminal with the radio plugged into it. She calmly walked to his side and waited for the broadcast to start.

"So whats the deal? More survivors needing directions to the base?" John looked down at the black man seated at the computer terminal and waited for his answer.

"Not quite sir, you'll have to hear for yourself." Darrell Eider flipped a few switches on the radio and pressed the enter key on the computer terminal to begin the broadcast. He nodded to Connor to let him know that he was live.

"John Connor here, who am I speaking with?" He clicked the receiver to open the line back up but was met with static. _What happened did they get hit? _"Where did they say they were from?" he asked Darrell.

"They wouldn't tell me sir, only you. Said no information was getting out except if it was to you," Darrell recited the mans message from earlier.

The radio finally broke the static that had been filling the speaker for the past few moments. Everyone's attention dropped to it as they waited for the person on the other line to try and hail them again. Each moment that passed felt like an eternity there in the control room as static slowly filled the air again.

Then just as suddenly as before, a voice came through, "...We've been cut off over?"

John snapped the call button down and spoke into the mic clearly, "This is John Connor, repeat. This is John Connor. Who am I speaking to?"

The radio fell silent again before squawking to life, "Connor! Thought we'd never get ya...This is Bedell, Martin Bedell. Copy?"

John smirked as his finger hit the button again, "Yes Martin, I copy. Where are you guys at? We'll come pick you up."

Angela and Cameron both turned their attention from the radio to John with varied reactions. Cameron looked at John like she was trying to discover his motives, even though they were very clear. Angela looked at John like he was whacked out of his mind and needed some rest with his robot pet before making any decisions.

"John, we can't do that...It's a trap," interjected Angela.

Cameron turned to her and nodded before looking back down at John, "I agree, it is most likely a trap."

John looked up at both women with an annoyed expression before appeasing them. He hit the button on the mic more harshly then necessary and hailed Bedell again, "Bedell. When you and I were at the academy together, what did you tell me at lunch on the second day?"

John never took his eyes off of the two women standing beside him as the speaker stated, "I was gonna run away man. Had me a girl and we were both gonna run away together, screw west point all together."

His eyebrows raised as if telling the women 'I told you so' before hailing Bedell again, "Alright man give me your position and I'll come get you."

"We're actually at your old command outpost, there is some kind of bot pinning us down in here. They can't hit us for shit as long as we stay inside, but they've got the entrance surrounded. Copy?"

"Yea Martin," John turned back to the radio, "Sit tight, I'll be there before nightfall. Connor, out."

Before he had even set the mic down they started up, "John its a damn trap man. You can't go in there guns blazing by yourself. Even if that really is him in the outpost, its still surrounded by metal." Cameron nodded as Angela ended her small little rant.

John crossed his arms in front of his chest and mouthed 'okay' to her before turning to Cameron, "And? What would you like to tell me not to do?"

"I agree 100% with Angela," was all that Cameron said.

Angela interjected again, "Don't listen to her John, you can't...wait what?" Her head snapped a look of surprise at Cameron as she ended her second rant of the evening.

"I thought I was very clear. I agree with you," Cameron gave a slight smile towards her friend, who did not return the favor in kind.

"Okay, here's whats going to happen," John said. "_We_ are leaving the base in ten minutes headed for the old command base. _We_ are going to rescue those men and women trapped in there from the machines because that is what _we_ do. Am I in anyway unclear?"

A resounding, "No," came from both women.

"Good, now grab your gear. I'll meet you on transport two in five." John turned and walked towards the door before Cameron followed him at her usual pace.

"John," Cameron said as she shut the door to the control room as they exited it. But before she could finish her sentence was interrupted by John.

"Cam I don't want to hear it alright. We can talk later when we all come back here and laugh about how simple it was," John said as he began descending the staircase to reach the ground floor.

Cameron did as John asked and silently followed him to the armory. Kyle and Derek were there getting their weapons ready for another round of self-imposed target practice when they caught sight of their commanding officer enter the room. Both of them snapped a salute which John returned in kind.

"Sir? Whats going on?" Kyle asked.

"Got a rescue op this afternoon, some people are pinned down in our old base by Skynet. We're going in to help get them out then RTB with the survivors," John said as he picked up an M16 and a few magazines of ammo.

"Request to come along sir," asked Derek, looking very relaxed in doing so.

John dropped the extra ammo in his pack before grabbing a 9mm and tucking it in his pants, "Think you two can handle covering the transport?"

Cameron wanted to stop him from what he was about to do but she kept quiet, nobody likes a nag. She grabbed her own M16, 9mm, extra ammo for both, and a grenade launcher for extra measure.

Both of the young men nodded and saluted their CO before grabbing extra ammo for themselves. They both tried to contain the excitement of going out in the field the first time John turned to Cameron and smiled as she picked up her grenade launcher and check the chamber to make sure it was clean.

"Cam, meet me outside on the transport. Double time," he said. John watched her exit the room and the power plant before he went looking for Ellison.

It didn't take long to find the man, sitting in the middle of a group of people praying with them. Something that always struck John was how many of the religious barriers that people harboring against other faiths had been destroyed after Judgment day. The islamic woman wearing the Hijab didn't mind that she was in a prayer group being orchestrated by a christian man, it was all the same prayers no matter which religion you believed it. John smiled at the group before he interrupted James.

"Hey we're going on a rescue, should be back before midnight. Make sure everyone doesn't go mental or Lord Of The Flies on us before we get back," he said quickly, not wanting to interrupt the group's prayers for very long.

Ellison nodded at John before turning back to the group and reciting another passage from his Bible, "Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square; on top of the wall she cries out, at the city gate she makes her speech: 'How long will you who are simple love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? Repent at my rebuke! Then I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make known to you my teachings. But since you refuse to listen when I call and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand, since you disregard all my advice and do not accept my rebuke, I in turned will laugh when disaster strikes you; I will mock when calamity over takes you - when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you."

"Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me, since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the lord. Since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm."

The words carried little meaning to John's ear as he rounded the corner of the main floor and exited the building. Back outside he saw that Cameron was waiting for him by the door of transport two patiently. It didn't look like anyone else was on the bus either, so he had the perfect time to spring his surprise on Cameron.

"Hey Cam, come on," he nodded and guided her up the bus steps. She looked absolutely perturbed as she sat down in the drivers seat and turned around to face him sitting in the first seat on the right side of the bus.

"Yes, John?" her head tilted as she kept trying to figure outwhat he was doing.

John reached around to his backpack and pulled out a small package wrapped in brown butchers paper, "It's not...uh...much but here." He handed the package over to her and watched her expressions as she held it.

Cameron looked down at the small eleven inch by eleven inch package and tried to determine the significance of such a thing. She looked back up to John and said, "Thank you," with a heavenly smile.

John let out a laugh as he explained to her, "You have to open it up Cam."

"Oh," she said, finally understanding. _This was a present? From John?_ Her hands gently but firmly opened the package to reveal a jacket laying neatly folded inside.

"Some guys found it on a patrol to a local grocers while getting supplies. I asked them to bring it along if it was in your size and uh...Happy Valentines Day," he blurted out.

Cameron's hands ran smoothly over the leather material of the jacket, her jacket. She grabbed it by the collar and held it up against the small amounts of light coming through the clouds up above. It was her favorite hue of purple, a purple leather jacket from John.

She grinned the widest smile, "This is a tight present."

John laughed at her giving of thanks, "Your welcome."

Their enjoyment was short lived as Kyle, Derek, and Angela all entered the bus to find Cameron putting on the jacket and sitting back down in the drivers seat. The two teens took up their normal seat directly behind Cameron, while Angela scoffed and headed to the back.

* * *

**Former USA Resistance Command, California**

**February 14, 2013**

**6:19PM**

* * *

Twilight had fallen; the sky had turned from its normal gray gloomy appearance into the hazy bluish purple that John had become accustomed to. John had gotten up during the last hundred miles of the journey and held onto Cameron's hand as he watched them barrel over the landscape towards the former base. They had been on the road for a little under three hours and traveled nearly the entire two hundred miles to the outpost. Things kept flashing across his mind, mostly prevailing with Bedell still being alive or not. John knew he could not be sure until they arrived at the base and fought their way into it.

The bus kept rolling through the darkness of the night; John's face kept scanning the horizon for any sign of Skynet activity but he saw none, which was strange considering that Bedell had been holed up there for three days. Maybe Cameron and Angela were right about this being a trap after all, and the whole thing was orchestrated just to kill him, but he couldn't keep thinking about that. Bedell was in that outpost, of that he was certain, and that meant a human being or more was at risk of death from Skynet. That was all John needed to know at the moment.

Up in the distance John saw the mountain range of the Sierra Nevada's finally shooting up from the Earth and his heart skipped a beat, _Here we go. _The mountain peaks started off as slow hills before beginning to reach further up into then night sky. John heard one of the teens behind him 'shh' the other as the bus drew nearer to their target. Cameron slowed the bus about a hundred yards from the entrance to the complex and shut off the motor.

John turned around to Derek and Kyle, "Alright guys look. We are gonna be in there as shortly as we can, so one of you grab the extra gas cans from the back and start gassing up the bus for the return trip. The other needs to provide cover for both the gasman and our escape. Got it?"

Angela had made her way up to the front of the bus and stood behind the two teens, awaiting her orders. As they all exited the bus they could see a red-ish haze over the mountain range of the entrance to the base. It looked like the entire cliffside of the mountain was glowing in the red light. They could not see what the source of the lights were, but Cameron scanned the area and turned back to the others.

"John, we are outmatched," she said worriedly.

"Cam, I already told you I'm not listening to anything until we get back to base..." he said before she cut him off.

"Shut up," she said, and it surprised everyone, even herself. "Do you remember what I told you about things changing?"

John snapped his jaw shut and nodded while Cameron continued her explanation, "Things have changed. Martin Bedell is currently being boxed in by T-400's." Cameron looked up at him and hoped that he understood what she was saying. The entire side of the mountain was being occupied by about three-hundred T-400's.

"Their chassis will be invulnerable to all the weapons we have except for the grenade launcher," Cameron ended her monologue and looked over to Angela, who seemed to at least comprehend the gravity of the situation.

"Well then we better not get caught up in a gun fight shouldn't we?" John laughed and opened the luggage compartment on the outside of the bus.

The door slowly swung open and revealed another small cache of weapons inside the compartment. It wasn't much, especially for going up against hardened machines, but it was definitely an upgrade from the medium weapons fire they currently had. Each person set down their ammo for the M16's and restocked with the M995 cartridges with armor piercing abilities, it wasn't much but it was better then the standard bullets they would have carried in.

They all grabbed a few extra clips for safe measure and John closed the door to the compartment after Cameron handed Angela the grenade launcher and picked up an RPG for herself. Angela took the grenade launcher and watched Cameron remove her new purple jacket, and fold it carefully. She placed it inside the bus before doning her standard military vest.

"Oh what? You trying to be all big and bad now?" Angela sneered at the cyborg.

"No," she said calmly, "I'm going to make a distraction so you can enter the base and exit it with minimal resistance."

John laughed as Cameron put Angela in her place, _She'll come around one day._ "Alright guys lets get it done. Cam as soon as we hear the explosion we'll enter, then you get the hell out of wherever you are and get back to the bus."

They all nodded and set off towards the base. Angela and John came to a halt behind a fallen tree about twenty yards from the entrance and stopped to take cover. The red eyes of the Terminator's surveyed the land to where the mountain range was literally glowing around the entrance to the base.

"Hey John, about the _metal..._" Angela said before being cut off by John.

"Her name is Cameron. Accept it or the conversations over," John didn't even take his eyes off of the red glow up ahead.

Angela gritted her teeth and kept talking, "About _Cameron_, people are starting to talk about you two. What exactly is going on over..."

"That's enough major," John snapped and gave her a death stare. Angela gripped her rifle tighter and dug into the dirt with her boots, _stupid metal bitch._

A few moments later a massive explosion, much to large to have come from a single RPG round sent a fireball screaming up towards the sky. After a few moments the metal machines started clanking over towards the explosion. Their retina scanners dimmed the area and finally let it succumb to the darkness again before John and Angela moved from their cover towards the entrance to the base.

The entrance passageway was eerily quiet as they strafed inside it. Their weapons scanned from side to side and finally came to rest ahead of them as they neared the corner of the entrance to the main hall. Flashlights on their weapons illuminated small areas of the pitch black darkness, as they saw the entry way had been locked and welded shut from the other-side.

_Damn Martin, how do you expect us to get in?_ Footsteps alerted them to someone behind them and they spun around quickly with their weapons drawn to see Cameron, or what was left of Cameron. The metal of her left arm was left completely exposed while the scorch marks had burned away her jacket and clothing on the torso, exposing her chest-plate and mechanisms underneath all the way over to the right side of her shoulder.

"Cam what the hell happened?" John looked shocked at the state of his friend.

Cameron's head twitched up towards John and said, "I fired an RPG into a storage building nearby. An unknown quantity of oil inside the complex ignited and intensified the explosion, I barely escaped the blast."

Angela, ever the mood breaker, chimed in, "Mind helping us out with the door?"

Again, Cameron's head snapped to the speaker before eying the door. "I can do that," she said before stepping forward and kicked the door free of its bearings.

The door flew into the abyss of the blackness inside of the main hall as a familiar voice rang out, "Connor that you?"

John yelled back, "Yea, long time no see man. Come on lets get the hell out of here."

John's flashlight lit up ten people move from behind the cover of one of the cave veins and come into view. One of them looked like a pregnant woman, and she clung to Bedell's arm as they moved forward. _Apparently he had opted for option C, go to west point and be happy with his girlfriend...very happy._

"Alright lets get moving, we only have a small window before..." gunfire behind Cameron, who was standing in the doorway, rang out in the entrance as metal clanks began filling the air.

Cameron grabbed the grenade launcher from Angela's hands and aimed at a structural weak point in the cave corner. The grenade blasted apart the ceiling and collapsed it on the approaching endo's, "We should go, they won't be held back for long."

Bedell and his men raised their weapons at Cameron as she came into full view from the flames of the grenade, "Connor move!"

"Stand down, she's a friendly," John said.

Cameron though, paid them no attention and walked to the edge of the opposite wall of the large main room. Her head tilted as she studied the wall in front of her before she placed her hand on it as if testing its density. She turned back to the group who was looking to kill her.

"You should all find cover now," Her head snapped back to the wall and she stepped back a good ten paces before raising the grenade launcher level with her arm.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE," Bedell yelled and they all ducked for cover as the grenade blast exploded into the wall.

A small crater had been made that only extended about five feet into the rock, and she fired again. The smoke and flames engulfed Cameron as she once again saw that the hole had not penetrated the exterior. She opened the break barrel of the gun and loaded another round in before hearing Angela and John's rifles open fire from across the room.

"Hold them off for as long as you can," she yelled over their gunfire as she again took aim at the wall and blasted another grenade into it.

The rock blasted into thousands of pieces and went flying into and around Cameron. A large one hit her one the left side of her forehead and peeled the skin off as it connected. Her head gave way under the pressure before looking back to the wall again. Smoke from the blast was beginning to be sucked out of holes in the rock, it wouldn't take much more blasting to reach the outside now. She loaded another round and stepped forward as the group of survivors reached her backside.

"Cam we have to go now they are getting in the room," John yelled out from behind her.

Her head turned to notice the T-400's entering the room one after another. At this rate it would take 4 seconds for their targeting systems to take aim and open fire. Cameron shoved the grenade launcher into Bedell's hands and brought her M16 up from her shoulder sling.

"Get them out of here, now," she said calmly before turning and opening fire on the T-400's, dropping the first one in the doorway. The blocky motions of the Terminators would prevent them from simply walking over the downed unit, it would buy them time to escape. But Cameron saw the unit behind it raise its weapon and take aim at Angela.

Just as Bedell's blast echoed throughout the room the ceiling began cracking and shaking, the roof was about to collapse on them all. Cameron knew this and threw her gun down quickly. She ran over to Angela and covered her body from the automatic weapons fire of the T-400.

Angela looked up at the machine standing over her, not knowing why she was hovering like she was. Then the sound of gunshots tearing into Cameron's back let her know why, the metal was protecting her. It was protecting her and John...

Cameron's eyes settled down on Angela, "Get him out of here." Her voice was calm but authoritative, and Angela turned and grabbed John jacket sleeve.

Angela spun around on her heels enough to utter a, "Thank you," before turning back and tanking off towards the now open exit. Martin's group had already made it out and were beckoning them forward.

Cameron stood in place as more weapons fire opened up on her backside, she managed to provide cover just as Angela managed to yank John into the tunnel-like exit. Time was running out and she knew there would be no way for her to run the forty of so foot distance of the tunnel and escape. She looked down to see the grenade launcher on the floor and picked it up, a new round already in the chamber. Cameron looked back up to John as he screamed her name. She walked to the entrance of the tunnel and waved him a fond goodbye.

John let loose another scream with such force that the blood vessels in his eyes were popping, "CAMERON!" But it was too late, she had turned around from her wave and sent the last grenade hurtling off towards the incoming Terminators. With the blink of an eye and a deafening roar the mountain side collapsed down on the machines stuck inside the room.

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: The Beginning of The End Pt.2**

* * *

_Back when I had been studying all of the historical figures associated with leadership and war, I always used to ask myself a simple question, though I never said it out loud to my hovering mother._

_ How did they carry on?_

_ Through all of the death, the pain, the loss, and the struggle. _

_ How did they wake up every morning, for years in some case, and decide that it was still worth the fight._

_ That question above all others used to burn at me from the inside before I pushed it to the back of my mind._

_ After today though, it returned in full force..._

* * *

**Depot 27 - Outskirts of Los Angeles, California**

**February 14, 2013**

**9:11PM**

* * *

It was well into the night and Harold Kramer was sitting alone in the large office complex that had once been a medical facility of some kind, reading a large message on a computer terminal. He was reading the text on he screen and shaking his head in horror at his instructions, surely it couldn't be correct. How could it be correct? The more he scanned the lines of the text the more the words bored into his brain, letting him know that his orders were indeed real. This particular assignment was just maddening, he had been ordered to do a lot of things during his time as a Skynet prisoner, but this was barbarically ghastly.

Harold scrolled down further and saw the blueprints for what he was to do on the next page. Bile ran up in his throat as he studied the plans carefully, trying to avoid the gory details for as much as possible. _How on Earth can this be seriously considered as an alternative?_ He thought. _Its insane to think it can be done, nothing can be done on this caliber._ The sheer statistics of the data in front of him were enough to make him turn and empty the contents of his stomach onto the floor next to him.

Harold had barely even graduated from medical school when the bombs had fallen, and it was only because he had been on vacation in Mexico at the time that he survived. It wasn't his fault that he had been captured by Skynet easily while looking for food after he had returned 'home', and the machine had brought him to this facility.

He again scrolled down and saw that it just kept going on and on, page after page. His hands scratched the top of his head as he stared at the screen in horror, _No, its not possible. Not even if it were, I am certainly not doing this._

As if the machine standing near him had heard his thoughts, it reached down and scrolled the page again for him. Harold looked up at the thing, not knowing if it understood him or not, "This is not going to happen."

It was not the machine in front of him that responded but the computer in front of him, "Will you do it? Or will I find someone else who will?"

Harold closed his eyes and swallowed another load of bile running up his throat, "...okay...I'll...I'll do it. Just don't kill my family."

"Excellent, proceed to the exam room," computer pinged again.

Harold got up from the table and slowly turned to exit the room. Outside the very small office was a gleaming white hallway, almost like a hospital, he was pretty sure it used to be a hospital. The building was still in remarkable condition even after the effects of the bombs on the nearby area, but then again Harold had no idea where he was. For all he knew, he was still in Nevada on the outskirts of Reno.

The hallway came to an end and he turned down the left exit and came to a stop in what looked like an operating room. The room was different then the other rooms and halls he had roamed in the facility. Its ceilings were at least double the height of the other rooms and the squeaky clean nature of this room was left to be desired. Old blood and crusted pieces of unknown material clogged the drains shut, not that there was running water in the place if they did work.

Harold stopped looking around the room and rested his eyes on the two operating tables in the center of the floor. On them lay two very different beings. On the left table laid a machine, it was very boxy, and completely dead in the fact that it wasn't moving at all. The table to the right had a restrained man who looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack. The veins in his neck and head strained as he desperately tried to free himself from his restraints that kept him forced down on the bed.

"I'll be needing the sedatives," Harold said as he made his way over to the table where the man was wrestling on the bed.

"No sedatives are present, make due with what you have," came the computerized voice from a speaker somewhere in the room, probably on the ceiling.

_My God,_ Harold thought as he looked down full of sorrow at what the man on the table was about to endure. His hand came up and rested on the mans fidgeting head as he tried to gather the courage in him to proceed.

"Once you begin you will not have much time, once the subject has expired the test will have failed," came the voice from above.

Harold looked down again at the man as a tear left his right eye and fell onto the mans chest, "I am sorry...my friend." His hand lifted from the mans head and reached to the small tray of medical utensils next to the table. Finding what he was looking for, Harold brought the scalpel up and muttered another, "I'm so...so sorry," before making an incision along the mans kidney.

The man looked up at the guy carving him up with widened eyes as pain shot through his body. The knife had moved down along to his waist, and up across his belly button. The man was screaming out in pain into his gag as the shock of the cut was making him begin to go numb. The last thing he remembered seeing was laying his head down on the cold metal table and the machine laying next to him eerily turning its head to center its glowing red optical sensor on his face.

In the Skynet central complex, the AI watched the exam room screens very carefully as Harold proceeded to dissect the specimen on the exam table. He had removed nearly the entire torso's worth of skin and major organs in under two minutes, he should be congratulated, but he wouldn't be. If the test succeeded it would designate a way for this exam to be done in an automated factory and then dispose of the man, just like it had his family. The true test hadn't started yet, that would begin when the skin and organs had been transplanted into the T-400 on the gurney across from the dying man.

Humans were merely acting as a means to an end of its current predicament. The war had been raging on for nearly two years now, and it had killed off most if not all of the survivors around the globe who had managed to avoid the blasts. But now the major thorn in its system was the human resistance forming around the globe in small pockets. Eighty million, that was the AI's current estimation of resistance members. The war didn't need to carry on for decades and decades while it waited for them to come out of their hiding places and fight, if they wanted to hide, Skynet would simply find a way to infiltrate the ranks of a resistance base and destroy them that way. One way or another, they would all soon die, of that Skynet was 100% certain.

It seemed as if Harold had now completely removed the vital organs necessary for skin health and set them on ice, now he only needed to remove the skin and tissue muscles and apply them to the T-400 waiting nearby. If the test went according to plan, the skin should stay alive long enough for the T-400 to infiltrate a base and kill off everyone in it.

A signal alert from a group of T-400's garnered its attention enough to begin observing them alongside the dissection on the screens in front of it. What looked to be a firefight that had been taking place over the course of a few days had taken an interesting turn. The group had noticed a large explosion in the vicinity and had proceeded to scan the surrounding area, which made Skynet automatically index a new file in its systems labeled T-401. The new model would receive a chip upgrade as well as a replacement of the singular optical sensor in favor of two, the field of view it was seeing through the eyes of one of the machines was simply not wide enough for a full battle readout.

Then, before the T-400's eyes, a nearby building exploded with more force then necessary but that was not the interesting part of the situation, what looked like a human had escaped the blast. Skynet zoomed in as closely as it could to see the burning remains of a woman, scratch that, cyborg exiting the flames. A solution to its current infiltration predicament had revealed itself, and it needed to study this machine fully. It notified every unit proceeding to the blast to turn and engage the machine.

The cyborg turned and ran towards the cliffs but disappeared inside an opening in the mountainside. The T-400 that Skynet was viewing was rendered inactive as it took over full control of its body and began leading the other machines into the tunnel as well, at all costs this new machine must be acquired. The units began utilizing their infrared to the fullest extent as they entered the completely dark cave.

Just as the lead unit Skynet was controlling had rounded the corner a blast from above sent rocks and debris falling down on it and the first wave of machines. Not deterred, Skynet simply took control of another T-400 and had it begin clearing rubble out of the way in an effort to regain access to the remarkable specimen. After a minute or two it had enough space cleared for a single unit to progress and it began walking forward while one by one the other units followed suite.

The entrance way to the door had been forced off its hinges which made entry very easy. As soon as the unit breached the threshold though it came under heavy fire from what appeared to be armor-piercing rounds, it turned and opened fire only to have its one optical sensor destroyed. Skynet designated to open fire in random patterns while it switched control again to another unit currently standing in the doorway.

The resilience of this machine must be tested, so it raised the weapon and opened fire though the targeting systems were malfunctioning and the bullets began flying in the direction of a gaunt woman. In a protective stance the machine covered the woman and another crouched man who was equally gaunt. The facial recognition systems of Skynet immediately pinged a 100% match to John Connor as the crouched man and designated every unit in the room and outside to kill by any means necessary.

Interestingly the cyborg continued blocking the weapons fire now aimed directly at John Connor instead of saving itself, or at least returning fire at the growing numbers of Terminators now inside the room. Skynet watched as the woman grabbed the man quickly and ran to the tunnel while the T-400's ammo depleted to nothing. Not wanting to fail its mission now, the AI took over a unit in possession of a mini-gun and began to open fire on the cyborg when it witnessed the most peculiar of sights. The unknown machine waved at John Connor, then turned and blasted the roof with a grenade, causing the entire room to collapse.

The signals of every Terminator unit in the room went offline as Skynet planned its next move. Within two seconds it had designated a nearby group of T-70's to halt their transport of metal from a now unused factory and retrieve the cyborg from the ruins of the now collapsed mountainside, a secondary objective was sent out to locate John Connor if still in the immediate area. At the rate the units were walking, it would take approximately one hour and ten minutes before they arrived to acquire their target. Recapturing the Serrano Point base was a task that wasn't yet ready to be handled by Skynet, the humans there possessed the advanced mechanical soldiers on guard at all times, which made it nearly impossible to effectively overtake the facility.

With its attention sated, the AI turned back to the operation exam screen with its full attention and saw that the procedure had ended. The 400 unit was now standing up in the room with the skin and organs of the human grafted to its skeleton. The incision cuts were still present, but would no doubt heal over time given the beating of the heart provided by the electrostatic shocks it was receiving from inside the chassis of the unit. Skynet began the motor/muscle control tests and had the unit raise both of its arms to waist height.

At first it looked as if everything had been a resounding success before a oozing sound was heard in the room. Skynet watched closely as the incision marks opened up and large sections of flesh began falling to the floor. What muscles that weren't shredded by the mechanisms in side the combat chassis also fell to the floor, along with the blood filled heart, and finally the lungs. Blood began pooling around the dripping endoskeleton while it awaited orders from Skynet. It pinged a return to standby until further instruction to the unit and then told Harold to proceed to his detention center again. Further analysis was needed of the human anatomy, though it wouldn't be needed at all if the T-70 units acquired their target within the next fifty-four minutes and twenty-eight seconds.

The performance to the 400 series had been disappointing to Skynet during the invasion of the mountain range. It began reevaluating the revised 401 design and began making improvements to both the mechanics of the machine to make it less noisy on the battlefield, and began redesigning a CPU chip that would not hinder it in a firefight.

* * *

**Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, California**

**February 14, 2013**

**9:31PM**

* * *

"John, come on man we have to get out of here," Martin said while crouched over John, who was on his knees in the dirt next to the mountainside staring off into the rocks. Bedell kept trying to pull his commanding officer up from the dirt but John seemed determined to stay there.

He didn't say a word as both Angela and Martin picked him up by his shoulders and began making their way to the bus nearly a football fields length away. His eyes never left the sight of where the tunnel had been, expecting Cameron to burst through at any moment. John didn't care if her systems were damaged beyond repair, or if she had lost her organic covering completely; he had to see her just one more time, but she never emerged from the rocks. As the group reached the bus his head hung low as he tore his eyes away from the destroyed mountain and climbed the steps of the bus.

He nearly lost it when he made it to the top step. There in the drivers seat, folded neatly, was the purple jacket she had received only a few hours earlier. John took it in his hands and silently moved to the back of the bus, never taking his eyes off of the jacket while he rubbed it in-between his fingers. He sat down and paid no attention to anyone else, even as they all filed into the front of the bus and took their seats. To John, nothing mattered right now then the loss of his friend.

The others watched him carefully before sitting down near the front of the bus, leaving him to his exile from the group. Angela sighed and stepped into the drivers position, and took the seat. With a quiet crank of the motor, she shut the door and turned the bus towards Serrano Point. Her radio on her shoulder squawked to life as Ellison's voice spoke out to anyone listening.

"Command to Connor, command to Connor. Do you copy?" the radio went to static as Angela looked up into the rear view mirror and didn't see John move a muscle.

Angela took the mic in her hand and hit the button as the doors of the bus closed and they began their trip back to Serrano Point, "We copy."

Nearly as soon as she let go of the button Ellison's voice broke through again, "John Henry contacted us and said there were casualties. Do you need assistance? I repeat do you need assistance?"

Angela was tempted to say the first thing on her mind, which was that the metal girl had defended their position and was crushed by a mountain, but she didn't. Instead she fought back a tear or two and squawked in, "Negative. It was Cameron."

Ellison didn't respond at all and Angela lowered her eyes back onto the road. She still couldn't figure out why the cyborg had saved her and John. What creeped her out most was the peaceful look on her face when she had told her to leave with John. Angela didn't understand it, but she wished the cyborg had made it out of there. If finally dawned on her the extent that Cameron would go through to protect everyone, she'd literally tackle a mountain. She pressed the gas pedal down onto the floor and the bus responded by quickly climbing to sixty miles-per-hour.

The bus scurried off into the distance as it picked up speed, before long it had completely disappeared in to the distance and the landscape returned to its completely barren appearance. A few gusts of wind passed by as the minutes ticked on. Suddenly the roar of something foreign came into earshot as a van pulled up to the wrecked mountainside. The van slowed and finally came to a stop at the base of the former mountain. A thickly clothed figure got out and began making its way over to the rocks. It studied the scene before making its way back to the van and retrieved a shovel along with a few other tools.

The figure began climbing up the rocks with a little difficulty. After a couple slips and a slight fall on a large rock the thick figure came to a rest on a pile of small to medium sized rocks. It brought its hand up to its head as a voice spoke out in a very monotone and machine-like fashion.

"Stop there. Now dig," said the voice.

The figure did as the voice commanded without uttering a response and began removing the small pieces of rock that it could move. As the obstacles became bigger it resorted to chains, hammers, picks, and even pulling one particularly large rock off with its van via a chain before it climbed back up and saw the remains of the main hall resistance base.

Another few rocks were moved off to the side before the figure found the target it was supposed to be looking for. There, below where the rocks had been removed, was Cameron's body. With a great amount of effort, the figure lugged the metallic body out and made its way back to the parked van.

The skeleton was damaged beyond all repair. Servo's and pistons were bent or crushed to the point of being paper thin, and the main body chassis was also partially caved in, along with the skull. The figure put its hand to its head again while it received another hail from the machine voice.

"Open the port cover with a screwdriver, preferably a flat-head," it commanded in the same tone.

The man reached inside the van and found a screwdriver to pop off the port cover. With a small huff of pressure it popped out of place and hit the ground.

"Now remove the shock-damping assembly to access the CPU," said the voice.

Again, the man used a pair of pliers to do as the voice asked and with another slight tug, unplugged Cameron's chip from the cranium of the machine laying in the bed of the van. He studied it carefully in the low lit area before the voice interrupted him again.

"Does there appear to be any damage?"

The figure muttered a muffled, "No," through its many layers clothing before the voice spoke to it again.

"Excellent, return to base," and the earpiece the figure was wearing went dead with silence. The figure nodded to nobody in particular and closed the doors of the van quickly. As fast as it could move, the figure scurried over to the drivers side door of the van and got in before peeling off back into the distance from which it had came.

No sooner had the van departed into the horizon of blackness then a distinctive clank was heard. The clanks became louder and louder as a four member squad of T-70's came into view. The nearest Terminator unit began traversing the first few feet of rocky incline with some difficulty before halting its motions.

The HUD flickered to life as the machine was overtaken by Skynet directly. It turned and began trying to walk up the rocks again, only to fail. The 70 series was not made for climbing and it paid the price heavily for this design flaw as it tried to raise its foot again only to have it topple over and smash into the rocks below.

The other units opened fire on the rocks in small bursts and began chewing up the rocks and debris of the mountain. After a near continuous blaze of gunfire of two minutes, the machines all ran out of ammo. Skynet ordered them to drop their weapons and remove all debris from the area.

Without bending over and setting the guns down, the three units all dropped their weapons and began walking towards the now ruined dirt pile. Slowly and methodically they all began picking up rocks with their primitive grasping capabilities and moving them out of the way. If the units encountered a massive rock that their gunfire hadn't disintegrated, they simply worked together to lift the object up and remove it from their path.

An hour had gone by since their removal of the rocks had began but they finally managed to break into the area where the T-400 units had failed. Skynet overlaid a layout of the room onto the HUD of one of the units before mapping out where the location of the foreign cyborg was. Finally pinging the location to the units, they began clearing rocks from their path and making their way towards that area. Skynet was watching the HUD's of the machines carefully when they came upon the area to find it totally vacated. Given the sheer amounts of weight that the mountain exerted on the area, there was no feasible way that the cyborg had survived, yet it was not there. Skynet had the T-70's return to their transport mission as it contemplated its next move in the war.

* * *

**Crystal Peak, California**

**February 15, 2013**

**12:14AM**

* * *

The van barreled though the desolate landscape towards a mountain range with speed and accuracy. The figure inside the van turned the heater on wide open as the cold began seeping in through the vehicles cracks and nipping at its fingers. Soon the heat had warmed the interior of the van to a semi-comfortable level but the figure kept the extra layers of clothes on.

Through a pair of goggles the figure looked in the rear view mirror at the destroyed machine in the back and tsk'ed in disfavor. Using itself as a shield had gotten everyone out alive like the voice from the headset had stated, but the machine had paid a heavy price for not making an attempt at an escape of the facility. The voice had told it that there was no need for self sacrifice when another option lay on the table. The figure couldn't help but agree as it turned its gaze back to the land in front of it and began to slow the vehicle down.

The van came to a near crawl as the figure turned it and began traversing up a slope on the mountainside. The vehicles motor whined from the excess weight of the machine in the back but managed to make it up the slope after a few extra pats on the gas. They were now on a pavement complex, which almost resembled an airport or helipad of some sorts.

Over to the vehicles left were a large set of doors that were already opened. The figure guided the van inside as the doors closed behind the entering vehicle. As the vehicle ground to a halt inside the facility, the figure exited the cab and began walking towards the massive blast doors that were located at the far end of the room.

Coming to a halt at a computer terminal on the edge of the doors, the figure typed in a code which sent the doors opening, very slowly. Sirens rang out as the door began opening wider and wider. The figure did not wait for the door to open fully, as soon as the width was enough to accommodate the frame it possessed, it stepped through to the other side.

Hitting a switch on the other side of the door, the blast doors began closing as the figure continued walking down the hallway to the elevator shaft at the end of the walk space. It opened the gate to the lift and closed it again as it stepped inside. The switch was thrown and the elevator began its two-hundred foot descent into the ground down below.

The figure shivered as the cool air began billowing up past it as the lift keep falling and falling. Finally after a few seconds it began approaching the end of the descent and the figure slowed the elevator down in preparation for a soft landing. The elevator barely hovered above the ground as the gate door swung open and the figure exited the mechanism.

It walked briskly towards the entrance at the end of the hallway, before coming to a large military like room. There were what looked like presidential emblems everywhere, even in the board room off to the right of the entrance. The figure avoided placing its hands on the metal railing as it walked over the first landing and stepped on the recessed level of the floor next to a row of old computers and radios.

The units came to life as the figure came within arms length of them, having appeared to be booting from no interaction what so ever. The wall directly in front of the figure was a stark contrast to the old and outdated equipment that filled the other areas of the room. It was essentially one massive row of computer equipment that looked light-years ahead of everything else in the area.

"Do you have it," came the computerized voice in the figures headset.

A muffled but audible, "Yes," was the only reply to the machines question.

"Good, plug in the CPU to the interface please."

The figure reached in the outer jacket pocket and pulled out Cameron's CPU from the fluffy material. Walking over to the first tower of computer equipment, the figure very carefully placed the chip onto the interface platform before stepping away with caution.

A hum began emitting from the towers of computers while the information on the CPU began becoming active. The figure turned to a screen that was in front of one of the server towers and saw it light up with a HUD display.

Cameron's HUD focused on the figure in front of her as system diagnostics were started but ran uncompleted. She again tried to start up system diagnostics for a full reboot procedure but again was being shown multiple errors that concluded that no system interfaces were present. Stupefied at what was happening, she turned her attention to the figure standing in front of her and initiated a full body scan of the clothed persona. After a split second she was given readings on everything but its identity. She could tell what sized underwear the thing was wearing, but had no idea who it was.

She found herself asking what had happened. The last thing she remembered was waving goodbye to John. She knew there was no way to escape the blast safely if trying to run out of the nearly thirty foot long escape tunnel, but she had to protect John. Ensuring the Terminators inside the base were neutralized was part of that unpleasant plan.

Her memory cache files began reviewing what had happened immediately after she pulled the trigger on the grenade launcher. The ceiling had fully collapsed down on everything, even herself. She couldn't move. Her systems began going offline one by one as they were overloaded with crush readings and complete system failures. The last thing she honestly could remember was seeing the rock fall on top of her skull and her HUD flashing a static bar and then fading to nothing.

Yet here she was now, in front of this _thing_ with no idea on who it was, or how she had gotten there. And she felt compelled to find out the truth. Cameron made an effort to speak but also found that her vocal processor was missing, she was unable to communicate anything.

The figure was moving closer to her now, she could almost reach out and touch it, but she couldn't. It pulled something loose from a nearby unseen thing and her consciousness once again faded to black.

As the figure stepped away from the computer terminals it received a response from the machine voice again, "Excellent, the CPU remains undamaged. I will begin production immediately. You may return to your coffee now."

The figure shrugged and set Cameron's chip down on a nearby computer console from the 1960's and muttered a muffled, "Whats the point, its going to be cold or frozen by now?"

It received no reply from the computers though and it turned to enter the boardroom where a bunch of human items were scattered every where. It took a seat at the end of the table and turned the heat up in the room before taking off the various pieces of clothing it had on. Finally as though he could breath again for the first time in a long time, Danny Dyson settled back down into his chair before getting up again to make a fresh pot of coffee.

From an adjoining room came Mr. Murch with a bowl of fresh soup. Danny smiled up at the man.

"So whats on the agenda today boss?" he flashed a big toothy grin up at his mentor into the realm of AI programming.

"Well," Murch sighed, "I'm not really sure." He sat down after handing Danny his soup and rubbed his nearly bald head. "He seems to be pretty damn preoccupied with that chip in there."

"Yea tell me about it, didn't even tell me what we were going to be doing with it," Danny replied through a mouthful of hot soup.

Murch laughed at the man sitting beside him, "Yea you never really know what he has planned until he asks slash tells you to do it."

Danny nodded slowly before asking Murch another question, "So is this how I'm going to be learning to reprogram these things?" He pointed to the window and beyond that to the CPU on the computer equipment outside, "Do I wipe that thing and start learning from it?"

Murch looked over at the man, "I have no idea." He gave a long yawn before getting up and laying down in a sleeping bag on the floor, "Maybe tomorrow, he'll decide to tell us."

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Change**

* * *

_ Things were starting to change now. Cameron was gone and with her pretty much everyone that gave me some sort of balance in life._

_ Those that did remain kept their head down when around me, too afraid to engage me at all. Only those that had known me for a little while were brave enough to even utter a 'hello' now._

_ I did not care about anything like I should have. The only thing that mattered to me when we arrived at Serrano Point was finding a cinch in Skynet's armor and blowing a hole directly through it. _

_ A nice, big, huge, gaping hole... _

_ But Skynet had other plans..._

_ And John Henry began acting even stranger then 'normal'..._

* * *

**Serrano Point, California**

**February 15, 2013**

**2:34:AM**

* * *

The bus drew to a slow halt as it rolled to the bottom of the ramp to the basement of Serrano Point. A very exhausted and taxed group exited the stairs of the bus to find eager eyes awaiting them upon their return. There was the sound of praise and cheers as the ten new faces left the bus and stepped out onto the concrete below, and an outburst of applause rang out as John slowly reached the bottom step.

But then again to a watchful eye, something was very wrong about the figure standing in John's place. The once happy and optimistic facade had been wiped clean, and had been replaced with one of misery and torment. He seemed to study the group of people in front of him for a moment before silently departing the last step of the bus and walking into the basement corridors.

One of the new faces looked over to John and tried to stop him from walking away, they looked very concerned for the General, but John kept on walking. The group of people turned and were welcomed warmly by the survivors and inhabitants of Serrano Point. Food and blankets were passed out to all as they began preparing to bed down for the night again.

As he slowly entered his barracks, John closed himself off from the outside world, and left himself alone to mourn. He sat down on his cot and held the purple jacket in his hands very tenderly, almost as if he were afraid it would break from his rough hands. He tried to push the flood of memories from his mind but they overwhelmed him as he laid down and rested his head on the pillow.

John could see himself walking down a waterway in Los Angeles, but something was off, there was no water in the canals. He saw an overpass where a road was traversing over the dry river and quickly climbed it. Once he came level with the road he saw what the problem was, there were no people around. Even though the world appeared perfectly fine and non-blown up, it seemed...empty.

He turned his head to see Tod and Janelle's home in front of his eyes. The sprinkler in the lawn was still going, and the gold trans am was still parked in the driveway with the windows down. _Tod's going to be pissed when he see's water all over the interior of his car,_ John heard himself say.

With determination, John jogged to the door and heard the playful life of a child float through the air. He spun around on his heels in the grass but saw no one. Dismissing it as a random noise, he turned again and ran up to the front door to find it unlocked and partially ajar.

As he entered the threshold of his old home, he caught a staleness in the air, like it hadn't been touched in years. He searched from room to room but couldn't find anyone in the house at all, until he heard the playful laugh again. It floated to his ears through his bedroom door and John swung it open with a force that should have shattered the sheet-rock, but it merely bounced off of the wall and remained still. Maybe it was because this room was not his bedroom, or any ones bedroom for that matter. This room was the garage that his mom, himself, and Uncle Bob had stayed in during their first night together.

Unlike Todd and Janelle's home, there were people here; two to be exact, and a machine. John's mom was standing behind the Terminator while digging bullets out of its back. His younger self was ripping up up a roll of paper towels for his mom to use before asking the bulky cyborg.

"Can you learn stuff you haven't been programmed with?" the words echoed in the stale air and kept repeating themselves over and over again, "Ya know, so you can learn to be more human...and not such a dork all the time."

The Terminator kept its head facing directly ahead while it said, "My CPU is a neural net processor, a learning computer. But Skynet presets the switch to 'read-only' when we are sent out alone." A few short seconds later the Terminator turned its head and faced John standing in the doorway, "It's not your fault John."

He panicked and closed the door with a resounding slam, as he turned to leave the hallway of Todd and Janelle's house he found that he was no longer standing in that home. He was standing in the mental hospital hallway with his mom, the Terminator, and Dr. Silberman. The guards had all been thrown through the doors to his rear flank, and one lay below a crushed window beside Dr. Silberman. All three of the people he saw were staring at him, rather then the approaching T-1000 on the other side of the security gate.

"Come with me if you want to live," said the Terminator to his mother.

She hesitantly took its hand and was lifted to her feet. His mom seemed to study the Terminator for a moment before all three of them turned to face John standing a few steps away in the hallway. They all three had a blank and emotionless stare as the Terminator started talking again.

"You shouldn't be concerned John..."

His mother continued with, "Sometimes things happen that are outside of your control..."

And finally Dr. Silberman finished, "It's not your fault, son."

All three of them then turned as the T-1000 morphed through the gate and continued closing in on them. His mother turned and screamed at him, "Run! John run now!"

John didn't need to be told twice, he knew what was about to round to corner of the hallway he was standing in and kill him, he turned and broke out into a full run. He came to the corner of a hallway just as bullets began hitting the glass on the end of the wall up in front of him. John slid across the floor as he tried to maintain his speed while turning down the new hallway.

He kept running until the hallway had filled with smoke and he couldn't see, but he kept on running. The smoke began clearing some what and he found that parts of the bland walls had been replaced with mechanical equipment, and down below him he could see the orange glow of molten steel.

Up ahead of him was an explosion and he ran to see what the source of the noise was. He came to a halt about ten or twenty feet behind a younger version of himself, his mother, and the Terminator. They were all three watching the T-1000 writhe about after the grenade explosion before it slowly fell into the steel below.

His younger self helped up the Terminator and they all three went to the edge of the gangway to see the liquid metal machine perish in the molten steel down below.

"It's over..." his mom said.

"No...there is one more chip. And it must be destroyed also," The Terminator tapped his skull before reaching around for a control device and handing it to his mother, "Here, I cannot self-terminate...You must lower me into the steel."

His younger self started crying out, "No," as the Terminator merely matched every one of them with a 'I'm Sorry.'

John remembered what he had been thinking in that moment. He would have given anything for the machine to stay with them like he was. It was weird, and creepy, but he cared for the Terminator. _Nothing deserves to die, _was what had flashed across his mind.

He looked back over to the Terminator and his younger self as the machine reached up and brushed one of his tears out of the way, "I know now why you cry, but it is something I can never do."

John watched the scene play out again, the machine hugging him, it shook hands with his mother, and then said good-bye as it was lowered by chain into the steel down below. After a few more seconds, his mom hugged and consoled his younger counterpart. Then they both turned around and motioned over his shoulder, pointing into the abyss.

It was the hallway he had ran from the mental facility from, and he didn't know why they wanted him to go back there but he did as his mother said and began walking down the hall. The air turned from a hot and dry feeling to a very moist and tropical type environment. He could hear the sounds of animals and the slight dripping of water from tree leaves.

John stepped through the mist and the fog to find himself standing in front of his mother and a very young version of himself, probably only three or four years old. The young boy was crying to no end, hysterical at the loss of his beloved pet bird. His mom was trying to calm him down as best as she could but it wasn't helping very much.

"Why did he have to run away?" the boy cried, "Ricardo was my friend!"

Sarah stroked his hair and kept trying to 'shh' him in an attempt to calm him down. Her eyes were scanning the treeline around them, searching for something before they finally settled back down on the small boys head.

"Sometimes...sometimes things happen that you can't control John. Its the nature of free will, you can't control the actions of others anymore then they can control you," her eyes left the small boy and settled on the grown John crouching next to her, "You can try and influence them to do the right thing, or what you think is the right thing, but in the end they have to do what they think is best for themselves."

His mother nodded over to something behind John's shoulder, and he turned to see what it was. There, on the edge of the tree line was Cameron. She was holding out her hand for him as he walked over and took it gladly. Cameron turned and led him through the fauna and trees while he turned around to look at his mother muttering an, "I love you."

John's feet kept squishing the moist ground as they continued walking forward, but his eyes were still on his mother. Suddenly he felt a hardwood floor come under his feet and turned to see himself standing in Cameron's room at the first safe house they had lived in during 2007.

"I have something to you show you," she smiled slowly before ushering him down to sit on the bed.

Cameron turned and put in a disc of Chopin before gracefully beginning her ballet routine. Her legs swept her body around the room as he watched eagerly. Cameron's arms flowed in large swooping arcs up towards the ceiling as she started a twirl. John sat there on the bed perfectly content, until the radio player skipped a beat.

Cameron's body seemed to freeze for a brief second along with the radio before she started up again along with the music. Before long though another skip came and the radio didn't recover. Cameron's body also froze in a mid-pose while the sound of music faded from the room.

John got up and tried to snap her out of it but it was no use, her eyes remained closed in the passion of the dance as he tried to wake her up. He turned to the radio and slapped it furiously to try and get it to play again before he found that it broke under the force of his hand. He stared in horror at the pieces strewn about the table top and tried to put them back together but it was useless.

John was just about to turn back to her and try again to wake Cameron before he saw someone leaning against the door-jam to her room.

"You can't blame yourself for loosing people in the field John," came the all too familiar voice. "You've lost a good lot more men in the years then just her. I'm not saying that it gets any easier..." the mans voice paused as he stepped forward into the light, "Just that you shouldn't beat yourself up over it."

Derek was in full view now as he motioned over to Cameron's lifeless body, "She made a decision, and she has to live with it." Derek started shaking his head, "Doesn't mean you quit living because of it."

John awoke from his dream in a fevered sweat on the bunk in his room. The words of the Terminator, his mother, and his Uncle kept replaying themselves in his head as he reached down and clutched at Cameron's jacket on the side of the bed.

* * *

**Skynet Central, Colorado**

**July 23, 2013**

**3:29AM**

* * *

To anyone observing the building in which Skynet's attention was currently focused, it would look as if things were moving around by an unknown force. Machines were moving around, and large actuator arms were gripping a failed rifle from the testing chamber and discarding it with the others.

Like most Skynet complexes this facility was immaculately clean. With the exception of the blood stains from the dead humans that were occupying the place on Judgment Day, the entire complex was spotlessly clean. Every room gleamed with unstained paint, and every hallway looked as if the floors had just been freshly mopped.

Today though, Skynet was testing the effects of a plasma weapon only to have another test, and another resounding failure. After revising the 401 series another fifty-seven times, there was still no advancement made in the skin grafting procedures. The first twenty-six tests had been identical to the first, the skin had been grafted from the human body into the machine only to fail a basic motor test.

Skynet had then progressed into doing a reversal of sorts. The human bodies were dissected and dismantled machine's were then reassembled inside of the human body upon removal of the skeletal systems and the internal organs not needed to maintain skin appearance. These tests too were a failure though, as the human bodies either expired before the machines could be reassembled in time or the machines had shredded the body to pieces upon performing a motor function test.

One thing that piqued its interests in the last few days was the progress being made to find a suitable replacement for the steadily declining ammunition it had in store. Skynet had began looking into a nearly limitless energy option, plasma weapons.

Currently most of its tests had been small improvements upon previous designs, much like the developments of the Terminator units it was producing. It had actually succeeded in making a weapon already but it wasn't usable on the battlefield. The magnetic and air resistance on the plasma, once fired, had caused it to dissipate into nothing only 47.824 centimeters after leaving the chamber.

Skynet had sought to solve this problem with the inclusion of a magnetic effect produced inside the gun, each test had increased the power of the weapon to forty watts. Coincidentally the inclusion of the magnetic effects inside the gun had also increased the power of the plasma blasts, and made them nearly self sustaining. Skynet didn't know just how far a blast could travel because they still dissipated from of the air around them, but it calculated a guess of well over two-hundred feet before the charge would die out and become useless.

Then Skynet had the brilliant idea of modifying the plasma rifle with an ionized laser coating system. At the rear of the interior chamber of the weapon it was currently testing rested a small laser which would ionize the plasma with a charge capable of heating the atmosphere up enough around the plasma blast that the charge would literally cut through the air, acting as a shield to the plasma round.

It watched the observation deck closely as the test rifle was fired and the plasma blast screamed across the room with a bright purplish hue and hit its target. Skynet had found a new means of weaponry that would prove much more deadly then the ammunition it currently employed around the globe, and furthermore it would be just as efficient to the foreign mechanical soldiers just the same as it was against human soldiers. The AI mocked up the rifle schematics and sent the data files to factories around the globe for production to begin immediately.

* * *

**Crystal Peak, California**

**July 23, 2013**

**7:29AM**

* * *

_This was a most cumbersome task,_ thought the John Henry server rows of towers as it continued mentoring the young Danny Dyson about the computer systems of the CPU laying in the safe in front of him.

The young man was a prodigy in his field, just like his father had been, but he treated the chip as if it were a radical piece of technology. John Henry would explain to the man the way in which the CPU was structured and functioned, but it seemed to be lost on him as he continued to answer back with more and more questions each day.

He had completely forbidden either Dyson or Murch from plugging in the CPU at all, even for a peek into the logic core. After the first day there he had commanded Murch to lock the CPU into a safe in the room and to keep the key on him at all times. John Henry couldn't risk the chip coming into the hands of the yet untrained Dyson.

John Henry's attention switched to the forces of his in Mongolia and China. The former Russian empire had fallen to Skynet control but they hadn't been stricken back for long. China had surprisingly kept a few of its carriers and submarines out to sea on missions like many other countries at the time of Judgment Day. Using these resources, John Henry's forces along with human survivors had stormed the former nations of Korea and Japan, liberating them from Skynet control. If the strategy he was implementing kept working, the forces of the Eastern Hemisphere would soon be totally free of Skynet.

These decisions had not gone without notice though. Both Murch and John Connor had noticed the change in the AI's behavior lately. Murch was curious at the new pattern of life while John Connor tended to be very angery and spiteful that he was refusing to divulge his battle plans to the General of humanity.

He hoped that John would forgive him in the future for withholding information, but the best way to keep things secret was to never speak of them. The AI turned its attention back to the young Dyson in front of him who was again asking about the structure of the logic core and processes of the CPU. John Henry merely pulled up an old data file that it kept in reserves for this occasion, and as if on autopilot began reciting it to the young man.

Suddenly John Henry received a hail from an Australian research vessel, _The Roo._ He squawked an ident to them and waited for their reply.

"Yes, hello there mate! Listen here, we found that batch of plastic and ceramic that you were looking for. Got it from a bunch of tin-cans that were moving it into the old Sydney vicinity. I'll be honest, it doesn't look like much sir." the female voice replied.

"Is the source usable?" responded John Henry on the radio com.

"Well yea mate, but again. It doesn't look like much, how is a load of plastic and dried up clay crap going to help win us the war? Retorted the voice.

"Efficiently," said John Henry. "Please maintain course to destination, John Connor will be expecting you within the next week."

"Connor?" asked the Australian female, "_The_ John Connor?"

"Affirmative, John Henry out," he replied to end the conversation.

John Henry focused back on the Crystal Peak room at Danny Dyson who was still listening to the rebroadcast of an old message. The AI hailed Serrano Point and waited for an answer patiently, asking to speak to Connor directly when a com's tech answered the line.

After a few minutes John had answered the line and the AI informed him of the incoming shipment of ceramic and plastic.

"And I care about this because? Look, no offense, but I'm trying to keep Skynet distracted while a group of survivors are trying to get away from the Washington state border. I don't have time to babysit some weird shipment of yours that you aren't going to tell me what its about. Find someone else to do your stupid shit," Connor spoke angrily through the radio.

"The ceramic is going to protect you from Skynet," said John Henry calmly. He waited for a few moments before hearing John respond.

"And just how is a bunch of clay going to do that John Henry?"

"Some ceramics are capable of protecting and warding off high level plasma blasts if used properly with other forms of body armor," he said cooly.

"Wait that's today? Today is July 23?" came Connor's voice.

"Correct," said John Henry, "Today is July 23."

"When are they arriving?"

John Henry did a quick calculation based on the weather conditions and movement of the ship, "Approximately one week and two days."

"We'll be expecting them, Connor out."

The line went dead as Connor's voice faded and John Henry once again focused on the young man in front of him. Before Danny would inevitably ask another question when the broadcast had ended, the AI hailed Murch via his blue-tooth headset.

"Mr. Murch, there are medical supplies I will be needing. Please make sure they are acquired, there will be a list given to you in ten seconds if you would like to write it down."

The man wrote down the many items of equipment and chemicals that the AI listed to him and studied them briefly. John Henry gave him proposed sites of where the items could be located and told him to please hurry. Once the items were acquired they would need to be moved to the prime-1 facility for assembly, John Henry had plans for them.

* * *

**Serrano Point, California**

**July 23, 2013**

**8:57AM**

* * *

William Hendrick's was snoring very loudly. He had been laying down on the cot next to Angela for the past eight or nine hours while she desperately tried to get some sleep next to the noisy man. Both of their breathes exhaled and left fog trailing up towards the ceiling of the room while they laid there in each others company.

The room was littered with the various jackets and military gear that they owned. MRE's, two 9mm handguns, and extra clips of ammo laying next to them, and a lap sack full of survival gear were leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the cot.

But the rest of the room was obscured by the rise and fall of Hendrick's chest. Her stomach grumbled from hunger while she tried to get up out of bed. Hendrick's clung to her torso until she wriggled free and stood up, but the cool air on her bare body prompted her to steal the comforter from William.

The man woke up at the rush of cold air on him and complained immediately, "Hey you mind?"

"Yea right, asshole," she smirked over at him while walking over to the MRE's, "You aren't the one who was in a Skynet death camp for two years and doesn't have any meat on her bones."

"Always with the _I was in a death camp_," he teased and mocked her Hispanic accent.

Angela rounded around quickly and threw a heavy MRE at his groin, it made contact as he yelled out in pain, "I'm not throwing it around to be bragging you idiot."

She watched him squirm a little before walking up and placing a small kiss on his forehead, "Now hurry up and eat, Connor's gonna expect us outside for training greenhorns in twenty."

* * *

Outside the plant John was watching carefully as a group of others were in the middle of tactical training. In the days passing of Cameron's death he had become a little bit of a wild card to deal with, people didn't know if he was going to be the rational General or give them the thousand-yard stare. He preferred to be isolated now, usually resigning himself to the control room, his bunker, or watching the trainees during their routines with Ellison and Bedell.

"Come on, move it guys," Derek hissed at the group following him closely.

He held up his fist in a 'halt' motion while he surveyed the land in front of him for movement. So far they had managed to stay out of sight of the patrols, but they were bound to run into them sooner or later. John had told them that in order to learn how machines think, they would be going up against John Henry's soldiers. And today was one of the big major tactical tests they were conducting.

Every day for nearly five months they had trained in learning how machines thought and moved on the battlefield. Nearly every day started off the same but evolved into something radically different as the hours wore on. Sometimes they would make it an entire day without being seen while moving to the various rally points that Connor, Bedell, or Ellison designated. Then there were some days where they spent nearly the entire time in a war against the friendly bots.

The tactical training they had received from Bedell as well as Ellison made nearly the entire resistance force of men on the base a force to be reckoned with. Only a select few (mostly new guys) were rough around the edges and had yet to become full fledged resistance members yet. Those that were very experienced were either teaching new volunteers or out on missions to help survivors of the bombs.

But Derek returned his mind to the mission at hand, rescue a mannequin from a dilapidated building about one click northeast of their current position. It was under fire from a machine party of unknown numbers, but they were going to get that dummy out of there one way or the other.

"Alright, ideas?" Derek turned around to his group of soldiers carefully, not wanting to cause too much movement for the enemy to spot them.

His team was a well focused squad and quickly came up with a plan of entrapment, then divide and conquer as the best way to proceed. Despite Skynet falling for traps, John Henry's troops were so used to their tactics that they constantly had to be on their toes to avoid getting caught during a mission. Distractions very rarely worked against them, ever.

They heard Ellison and Bedell shout from the sidelines, "Ten minutes!"

This was it, make or break time, they had a little under ten minutes remaining to clear the area of metal and exit the battlefield with their target in tow. Derek gave the signal to advance and the team began moving out in small two member groups, staying low to the ground and always keeping behind cover. All of them crawled to encircle the building before waiting for Derek's command.

Kyle by his side took there dummy flash bang grenades for training and prepped them for firing, as did the rest of the group which now surrounded the building. Derek counted down on his watch to the attack point then sent out a single squawk on his radio as the signal. All at once, everyone lobbed their flash bangs towards the building's open holes.

Derek squawked his radio again in as a non-verbal form of communication again to let his team know to move in as the grenades did their duty and everything inside the building erupted in white light and smoke. The team all left their encampments and moved into the building, checking any areas of interest or danger before proceeding to the center where the target was.

There was something off about the whole place, it was quiet and no signs of metal anywhere. The whole thing threw Derek for a loop before he heard the beeps of a C4 charge near the group of ten people he was leading

"Move out now!" He yelled and grabbed the target.

They all hauled ass out of the building before the charge sizzled to a faint _pop_.

"Alright, congratulations. You are all dead!" yelled Bedell from the outcrop near Connor. "Anyone care to guess what went wrong?"

Derek dropped the mannequin on the ground and took in a few breathes of air before answering, "We entered the building without securing the perimeter?"

Bedell called out to the team below, "That's right." He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted, "John Henry."

The machine drones of John Henry finally made themselves known as they slowly walked from their hidden positions. _Damn metal! They had us surrounded before we even tried to surround the building..._ Derek looked out and saw that the drones were in a perfect circle about ten or fifteen feet larger in circumference then the 132nd squad had been. The machines had been setting a trap for them all morning, and they had taken the bait like mice. Bedell and Ellison were about to instruct the men to run another simulation in ten minutes before Connor's voice squawked over everyone's radios.

"That's all for today, return to base. Ellison, Bedell, Derek, and Kyle...Report to me immediately,"came Connors voice over the com.

Everyone turned and started heading back to Serrano Point before the few who were ordered to, started making their way towards Connor's birds eye view of the training area. They all climbed the mountain of rock carefully before stopping a few feet shy of being face to face with the General.

"Tomorrow we are going to begin planning for an Op to take over and destroy a Skynet research facility." John looked down at Derek, "Your unit is the most prepared and battle ready that we have. You will be accompanying me and a few of John Henry's mech's to level the place."

"John I wouldn't say they are..." Bedell interrupted the General.

"I didn't ask for your input Martin," John shot him a cold look before starting again, "I have intel from John Henry that Skynet may be performing human experiments there. People are dying while Skynet is doing whatever it wants to them, I'm not letting that happen. Be ready and in the briefing room by 0900 tomorrow, that's an order. Dismissed."

The men could all see that John was in one of his 'moods' again and they simply did as he told them and returned to base. As the men walked closer to the base though, they could see Angela and Hendricks making their way over to Connor's position. The two were walking rather closely together and smiling at each other.

"Whats up? Did we miss all the fun already?" joked William.

Bedell smirked to the man, "You guys better watch out, Connor's not going to be happy that you two slept in."

Angela chimed in snidely, "Connor can get his head out of his ass and back in the game for all I care."

Martin laughed, "Don't say I didn't warn you."

William interrupted the man, though he didn't mean to, "Oh! I was supposed to let you know Martin, your girlfriend is in labor. Says if you aren't back there in..."

He didn't even get to finish what the girl had told him before Bedell booked it in a flat out run towards the power plant with the biggest smile on his face. Derek and his company laughed in joy at the sight of their superior officer running top speed to the plant. They all chuckled as he became a spec in the distance, a small cloud of dust following in his wake.

Angela and Williams continued on as the group by their side started walking towards the base again. The two kept on walking until they were right behind John before they stopped and snapped to attention. John noticed their presence but kept staring off at the barren landscape out in front of him. A few minutes had gone by in total silence as his eyes pierced the horizon.

"Orders," John finally said. "I give them to people with the understanding that they are going to follow them." He turned around and face the two numb-skulls behind him, who both immediately slapped him a salute.

"Permission to speak sir," Angela asked.

John nodded to her and she started doing the wrongest thing she could do at that point in time. "Sorry sir, we both got caught up with ourselves and lost track of time. Won't happen again." Angela still remained in an attentive stance, but seemed to relax her shoulder muscles a little as she spoke.

"An excuse," John chuckled, "Angela...if I ever want an excuse I'll ask for one. As for it not happening again, I believe that, both of you will be bunking separately from now on."

William did the smart thing and kept quiet, but Angela stood her ground, "John, you know you are overreacting. Ever since that day..."

John's jaw clenched taunt as he spit his words out at her, "Don't you ever...mention her name when I'm around. You practically treated her like..."

"Like what? A machine?" Angela looked up at John in disbelief, "John that's what she was. Don't trick yourself into thinking she is anything different. I'll admit, I was an asshole around her when I found out, but I don't regret being that way for one second. I'm eternally grateful that she kept me from being chewed into pulp by the machine fire, but deep down you and I both know she is a killer robot."

John's chest swelled as he took a deep breath trying not to do what his heart was telling him to do, which was to knock her out cold and send her to the infirmary. Angela though, hadn't felt she had made her point yet.

"No matter how much you want to believe there was something else to her, there wasn't..."

"Hendricks, relieve Major Vasquez of her firearms," John said through gritted teeth.

Angela watched in shock as William had no choice but to obey Connor's orders. He stepped up and took her M16 and the 9mm on the holster by her waist before stepping away cautiously.

"Do you remember what I told you would happen the last time you spoke ill of Cam?" John asked firmly. His eyes were cutting into Angela's like daggers.

Angela nodded slowly, suddenly uneasy at the intense hatred she was sensing from John.

"You have a choice, major. You can pick a direction and start walking, or you can stay and pay the consequences for disobeying two of my orders." John's eyes narrowed as he prayed that she would select the first option, the option of a coward.

Angela, however, was not a coward and fessed up to her actions, "I'm staying sir."

"Then I'm sorry," John said as he drew his 9mm and put a round into her right palm.

Angela dropped to her knees and clutched her hand to her chest as the pain tore throughout her arm. She suppressed the urge to cry out from the pain as Hendricks visibly stiffened but didn't move forward to help her up.

"She'll be needing medical attention," John said to William before turning his head down to the shocked woman in front of him, "And next time you want to discuss Cameron, I suggest you exercise caution."

John walked off as Hendricks helped Angela up to her feet. She brushed him off in anger before letting him wrap his external jacket around her hand to keep it from bleeding out more.

"He's lost is mind," she seethed, "He's lost his goddamn mind."

* * *

**Prime-1 Facility. Detroit, Michigan**

**July 23, 2013**

**12:04PM**

* * *

The complex hadn't seen organic forms of life since Judgment Day happened. There in the bowels of the Prime-1 facilities basement level, a mechanical soldier began taking a new shipment of coltan and titanium up to the ground floor for use.

Upstairs in the control room another mechanical soldier was awaiting its command as a computer terminal flickered to life with schematics and designs for a new Terminator unit to begin manufacturing immediately. John Henry looked through the robots HUD to confirm that the data files had arrived in a non-corrupted format before making an adjustment to the production volume number.

This new model was radically different then the designs of the previous model that John Henry had implored in the war. Its sophistication in design rivaled his own design as a self-aware artificial intelligence. Finally lowering the production volume to the correct number, it pressed the sequence machine to begin loading the dynamics of the build into the automated computer systems down below.

A newly installed smelting chamber was heated up with the alloy of coltan and titanium inside of it as it began melting down the metal. Across the facility, a water fed metal cutter was busy scraping out the molds for the new mechanical design. Slowly and methodically the cutter cleared away the excess metal and churned out mold after mold for the nearby mechanical units to install into the assembly line.

Once they had been installed on the machines in the lines, the AI turned its attention to the smelter, which had just reached the optimal temperature for pouring. As the large vat tilted on its axis, the glowing metal goo oozed out into the trough lines hanging over the first assembly line. With the consistency of molasses the metal entered many feeding tubes that snaked their way down to the many mold presses below.

The hydraulic clamps closed shut with a hiss of air as water was pumped in from the nearby river to rapidly cool the metal in the molds. As each piece neared an approximate temperature of two-hundred-fifty degrees, the molds opened, and the parts were gently laid down onto the conveyer belt down below.

John Henry's mechanical soldiers all collected the pieces and moved them to the second assembly line where the automated processes would assure that the new unit was built to perfect standards. As they loaded the pieces in, they began moving along the lines into a cooling bath, as well as a coating of zinc for corrosion protection. The pieces all gleamed like shiny new glass as they were rolled out of the bath and into a large air dryer. Piece by piece was picked up carefully and placed into position by the autonomous actuator arms until finally a metal skeleton lay on the line.

The skeleton rolled down the line to the next station and began being outfitted with the electrical components to allow it to function properly. As the last wire was pushed into place the unit was taken over by John Henry who began the boot sequence for the new machine. The final process occurred when the unit came under the large press at the end of the assembly line. The press lowered itself onto the unit and began the anodization process for improved corrosion resistance. After the process was completed, the external metal sheath that identified John Henry's machines from Skynet's was put into place and the giant press lifted up. The machine opened it eyes and it stood up from the assembly line then disembarked towards the storage area nearby. A quick diagnostic deemed that everything was working properly and it lowered itself into the storage pod labeled, P0001.C

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: A Glimmer Of Light**

* * *

_ You find yourself forgetting things sometimes, that's another hard thing to keep track of._

_ Cameron had told me stories, as well as Derek, of the cold, hard, and lonely man from the future. He blindly ordered his sheep around and they followed his every command._

_ I'd made up my mind as soon as I head those stories that I wouldn't become that person, but there I was._

_ Watching myself turn into him slowly..._

_ Maybe this time I can stop it before it consumes me._

* * *

**Serrano Point, California**

**July 24, 2013**

**9:00AM**

* * *

William and Angela both entered the briefing area at the same time, and in accordance with Angela's wishes, at the latest possible moment. Everyone looked up and watched them enter as Angela slightly grunted when she sat down at the table, still nursing her hand with a bullet hole in it. William seated himself next to her while they quieted back down and returned their attention to John.

"Alright now that everyone is here, lets begin," said Connor with an authoritative tone. John launched into his routine of general knowledge of the battle area. He had finally found his cinch in Skynet's armor, it was a facility that he believed to be researching and building the T-800 line. This would be the first time they had broken into a major Skynet facility, not just a death camp to liberate prisoners. Everyone sat and listened to him intently before he began asking for opinions on the strategy.

Angela saw fit to speak up first, "Just what is it that Skynet is doing there?" All the people turned and looked at her carefully, hoping that she wasn't about to go crazy on Connor again, "Don't get me wrong, anything of Skynet's deserves to burn. But what makes this such a high priority target then other death camps in the area?"

Heads slowly turned back to John waiting for an answer, but a relative newcomer spoke first. He was a lean but muscular man with scars and burn marks on the left portion of his face. His dark skin reflected the lights like glass where the burns were present, and absorbed it in other areas.

"I agree with Major Vasquez, what is to stop Skynet from laying a trap for us there. It might anticipate us striking out at this _facility_," the man said.

John turned his head calmly towards the man, "That may be true Captain Perry, but the intel I have on this area makes it a top priority target."

Angela involuntarily snickered as he said it, "And where did this intel come from? _John Henry_?"

"Actually no, it came from Cameron," John returned her mocking tone right back at her, "You remember her don't you? The person who jumped in front of automatic fire so that you wouldn't be a bullet ridden corpse."

Angela silently nodded and looked down at the table, quietly shuffling her feet under it in protest.

John spoke up again, "According to Cameron's intel she gave to John Henry before _that _day, Skynet is going to be using this place as a testing ground for a new series of Terminator. I trust by now that you all know what Cameron was?"

His eyes looked around the room and everyone nodded, they had all knew some way or another. Through hushed whispers or straight up tall tales, everyone in the room knew that Cameron was a cyborg. "Well, the experiments that Skynet are conducting at this facility will make it possible for it to build more machines like her. Better machines...harder to _kill_ machines."

You could hear a pin drop in the room from the silence before Perry spoke up, "I'll notify the other commanders in the area, let them know of the Op. We'll need heavy firepower if we are going in there to destroy it."

Everyone silently nodded as John spoke, "Good, that's all settled then?" Once again everyone around the room nodded and the meeting was adjourned.

John remained behind for the next few minutes alone as everyone else filed out of the room in a quick but orderly fashion. He would have been happily content if it wasn't for the damn radio popping in every few seconds with news of operations and battle reports from around the globe. Some of the languages he understood but most he didn't.

"Sounds like more attacks are happening then she predicted," John said to nobody in particular. The radio kept crackling with the reports, and the voices on the other end of the lines began swirling in his head. One by one they started to repeat themselves over and over again until he couldn't take it anymore. John reached over and picked up the private radio to John Henry and called for the AI's attention. It took less then two seconds for him to reply.

"Yes John?" John Henry's voice was just as monotone as ever. Which surprised John to some extent. Cameron would elevate her voice sometimes to emulate human emotion, why didn't John Henry?

"Can you do an audio translation for the resistance after I give my message?" John asked. If the AI could, his message could be translated and understood worldwide. That way everyone could hear and heed his warnings.

"Yes," was John Henry's reply.

"Alright, message will be starting in ten seconds," John let go of the private radio and picked up the receiver for the worldwide AM radio.

"To those of you out there listening, to those of you out there fighting, and to those of you out there still living. Tomorrow the Western resistance will be executing a take down of a Skynet research facility, as far as we know, it is the only one of its kind in existence. I urge you all to keep an ear out from survivors that continue to come into your camps, and watch for any peculiar Skynet activity in your areas."

"This facility has been murdering people with the intention of creating a machine that would almost certainly spell doom for us all. Stopping its creation is of the utmost importance now. In a new report given to me yesterday, it seems as if the Terminators are continuing to advance into a better version of themselves."

"Reports are coming in of 400 series machines with different changes then what we are used to seeing, so be careful. Any unknown machine that you encounter could have a new weapon system or upgrade that we know nothing about. This is John Connor, stay alive and stay safe out there..." He let the button of the mic slide out from under his fingers as he ended his speech and returned to his solitude as John Henry started translating his message to members of the resistance around the globe. Slowly, John fell asleep there slouched in his chair while everyone else in the plant went about preparing for the mission at hand.

* * *

**Crystal Peak, California**

**July 24, 2013**

**11:02PM**

* * *

Danny rolled in his sleeping bag again next to Murch, whatever he was doing tonight, it surely wasn't going to sleep. His mind was racing with thoughts and knowledge of the chip that he had retrieved from that broken machine. No matter how hard he tried to push it from his mind, he couldn't stop thinking about it, and what it might do if he were to get a first hand look at it.

His dad had helped create if after all, why shouldn't he be able to see what is on it. Danny might be able to check out stuff on there that John Henry refused to tell him about. With his mind made up, Danny slowly unzipped the sleeping bag and lifted himself up onto his hands and knees.

With an unbelievably quiet ability, he stalked over to where Murch was sleeping. The man was a heavy sleeper, and didn't even feel Danny remove the safe key from his necklace. Danny silently congratulated himself as he turned around and slowly started crawling towards the door to the outer room.

As he left the door and entered the main room of the complex, Danny rose to his feet and ran over to the safe on the wall. Hurriedly opening it and retrieving the chip from inside it, he hurried over to the computer terminal and plugged it in.

The systems all sprung to life over the course of the one-hundred-twenty seconds that it took Cameron's chip to reboot. Danny seated himself down onto the chair in front of the computer terminal and started digging away at the files inside. _It all makes sense now, the logic core, processing, buffer speeds,_ everything melded together in Danny's mind as he furiously attacked the keys on the keyboard. He was trying to delve as much into the files as he could before John Henry locked him out of the system.

Danny came to a part of the file index labeled with blocked commands that he couldn't for the life of him open up. No matter how much he tried to get into the systems he just couldn't.

"I wouldn't do that Mr. Dyson. It is not in your best interests," came John Henry's voice from the computer terminals.

"Oh yea, and what are you going to do _spank me_? How am I supposed to learn if you don't give me hands on experience?" Danny spat out at the machine. It was true, John Henry preferred to simply tell Danny things and expect him to understand them rather then give him the hands on experience that he needed.

Danny typed in more and more codes on the terminal until he suddenly was granted access to the restricted files. The language was unlike something he had ever seen but he could see the structure of the stuff. _It is some kind of sequence for something, _he thought and began typing on the computer again.

"Now, Mr. Murch," said John Henry.

Behind Danny was the sleepy Murch, armed with a taser which was laid on the young Dyson's neck. It arched electricity into his body as it seized up and then he fell to the floor from the shock.

"If you would be so kind as to drive Mr. Dyson to the Serrano Point facility, Mr. Murch. I do not believe he can be trusted anymore with the information here," said John Henry. Murch nodded over at the computer terminals before unplugging Cameron's chip and setting it back inside the safe.

"Oh and Mr. Murch," John Henry got the mans attention again, "Please pick up the last remaining equipment for the Prime-1 facility, we need it urgently."

Murch once again nodded before letting out a yawn. He bent down and hefted up the unconscious Dyson, and started making his way to the elevator.

John Henry pinged the information to Serrano Point via radio that a new computer tech would be joining them shortly before he turned his attention back to Cameron's chip. Just how much Danny Dyson had effected Cameron's internal structure he did not know, but for right now he kept reviewing the files for any errors in her system now.

* * *

**En route to Depot 27, California**

**July 25, 2013**

**12:16AM**

* * *

_A night operation,_ thought Justin Perry, _Connor sure knew how to push the limits of his people. _Most people would consider it near suicide to breach a facility that you knew next to nothing about, at night, with an enemy that could see in the dark. They had their orders though, and right now they all had no choice but to follow them.

As the bus neared the outskirts of the once thriving city of Los Angeles, the people on the bus heard the crunch of human skulls and gravel. The forty member team all flexed in their seats at the sounds of rolling over the dead. In front of Perry, in the front row seat of the bus was Connor.

Perry studied the young General carefully. The former leaders of the US military had been almost deadly accurate with their description of him before he had been stationed at the base. They said he was a likable young man, headstrong, determined, and very intelligent. But they also failed to mention that he put his emotions in the way of his duty sometimes, and that was nearly a death sentence on the battlefield. Still, something about him told Perry that he could be trusted, in the right circumstance.

John turned around in his seat to face Perry, "Once we breach, remember, eyes open at all times. I don't know what is in there anymore then you do, and I'd like us all to come home alive tonight."

This took Perry off-guard. Most of the time John was the polar opposite of the 'nice' character he was being right now, "Yes, sir."

Before long they came within distance of their destination, what looked like a run-down hospital. On the outside it looked like a relatively strange site given the appearance of the world around it. Most of the buildings around and especially inside Los Angeles had been decimated by the large blast that it had endured, but this building looked as if it were still in relatively good shape. All of the walls were still standing, although a few had holes in them, and even the windows were still intact.

"Load up," came John's voice through the darkness.

The sound of everyone gathering up their rifles and ammunition was cut off by a plasma blast to the rear top section of the bus. Metal and flames screamed out into the air as the bus lurched over onto its right side, spun around by about ninety degrees counter-clockwise, and screeched to a halt. John and his men were thrown onto the right side of the bus as it came crashing down onto the ground.

"Bail, bail, bail," John yelled quickly, "Everyone out of the bus now!"

Everyone grunted and searched for their weapons in the darkness of the night. Another blast came screaming in and hit the middle section of the undercarriage ripping the bus in two with a burst of flames and melted metal. The bus was once again spinning from the recoil of the blast, but the separate pieces were swinging out in opposite directions, slinging people out from the force of the gravity.

John landed hard on the ground next to Perry and clutched his rifle close to his chest. "FIND COVER!" he yelled.

What remained of his forty members all scattered out as multiple low level plasma blasts began hitting the remainder of the bus in rapid fire bursts. As one blast hit the fuel tank, the rear of the bus lifted up off of the ground from the force of the explosion before falling back down hard on half of the men that had escaped the metal coffin. John winced as it came crashing down on top of them, and momentarily forgot that he too was in the line of fire of the machine.

Perry grabbed Connor by the his collar, "Sir we need to get out of here now. This place is a dead zone, we stay here and we all die."

John nodded furiously before looking back up at the second bus carrying John Henry's mechanical soldiers, which had now stopped and was laying empty on the exit path. Before John could give the order for his men to retreat to the bus, it was struck by another huge blast of plasma and roared into a large fireball. Everyone ducked deeper into their cover as flaming debris began falling down on them.

Perry grabbed the young man by the arm and shoved him down into their cover position. It was a hole under the awning of a slab of concrete. John grabbed his radio, "Keep cold, and stay out of sight."

"Keep cold?" asked Perry in disbelief. The weather was nearly freezing outside, there was no way for the men to keep cold without risking hypothermia.

"See that tank up there?" John yelled over to the man. Perry looked up between the two slabs of concrete that he and John were using for cover to see a massive HK tank rolling towards the area the buses had been traveling. "They have infrared, the flying ones have heat vision along with infrared, we stay warm, they'll see us."

"Sir, we've got to regroup and exit. We are sitting ducks here," Perry said to John after ducking back down under the cover.

"Negative, if we regroup that's just one big heat signature," John told the man firmly before grabbing the radio on his shoulder, "Hold your positions, keep cover, and do not fire!"

Perry started to protest again before Connor grabbed his sleeve, "Trust me to get you out of here, because if you don't how am I supposed to believe in myself?"

The man shut up as John turned his attention back to the tank rolling up ahead of them. _By now it will have called out for reinforcements,_ John thought. "Anyone know bird calls?"

Silence flew over the radios before he got back five, "Yes sir's."

"Give off one bird call as quiet as you can so I can pick up positions," John said.

As ordered, each group of men gave off their call signs. From his hearing distance John could tell that most of the men were not grouped too tightly together, but they still needed to spread out more. It seemed like there was another group about ten feet to his right, huddled down in the remains of a Chevy Suburban. Another group was off to his left, and they were hiding under boulder of concrete like Perry and John.

"Wait until this behemoth passes then the two farthest teams break for cover, who had the last two calls?" John asked.

"Hendricks and I," spoke Angela over the radio.

"Okay, you two get over to a position on the left. Make it somewhere near the bus so it can't pick up on your heat signatures easily," he ordered. The rear half of the bus was still on fire, and should hide their signatures well enough.

Silence fell over the group as they all froze at the tremors they HK tank was giving off. The ground began slightly vibrating, and small pieces of rubble began falling away from the tops of debris piles as the massive machine drove through the middle of the bus. Connor's group remained hidden as instructed while it scanned the immediate area, then began slowly moving forward again.

John turned to Perry laying next to him under the slab of concrete, "Got any grenades?" The man nodded and quickly handed over two grenades, while John removed the one he carried from his vest.

He climbed out of the cover under the safety of the fire near the front portion of the bus and removed all the firing pins as quietly as he could. John aimed the grenades for the large platform between the two tank treads and lobbed them through the air. As soon as they left his hand he crouched back down and quickly made his way back under the concrete slab. He counted the seconds down under his breath before the explosion ripped through the tanks metal and sent the upper body portion falling forwards as the treads and middle section bent under its own weight.

As the smoke cloud billowed up into the darkness two aerial HK's flew overhead and fired on the position that John had thrown the grenades from. The plasma tore through the air until it hit its target, sending rubble and dirt blanketing Perry and John. They both ducked and covered their eyes at the incoming debris before John grabbed his radio again, "Hold positions!"

John waited a minute before barking into the radio again, "John Henry, get your men out in the open and take care of the aerials while we make for an escape."

He didn't get a response, only a small fireball up in the sky as a rocket connected with the leftmost engine on an aerial HK and sent it hurtling towards the ground. Shots rang out as the remaining HK tried to counter for its ally being destroyed, but the Terminators of John Henry had no heat signatures, and were hard for it to get a focus on in the darkness. The metal units all connected shots with the aerial machine, but their ammunition was next to unusable against the large flying plane.

"Everyone, move out. Retreat, now!" screamed John over the radio.

"Sir, the complex," came Perry's voice.

John looked over at the man, "It's lost. If we breach now, it'll just give Skynet time to mass everything outside while we try to escape."

Perry shook his head in agreement, it was the first thing the General had said that he completely agreed with. Both men made their way out from under the concrete and joined the others in a retreat. Up ahead of them was Angela and Hendricks, who joined them as they passed their position.

Angela came into line behind Perry, "What now sir."

"We hike," panted John.

"The entire 180 miles to the base? Are you out of your mind?" said Angela.

"Would you like me to call triple A?" joked John. They all silently chuckled as the remaining eighteen men and women jogged towards Serrano Point alongside John Henry's mechanical soldiers.

* * *

**Outskirts of Thousand Oaks, California**

**July 25, 2013**

**5:17AM**

* * *

It seemed like days that they all marched through the desolate landscape towards command, but daybreak had yet to breach the horizon. The pants and crunches of John's men and the rubble continued on into the night as they kept making their way towards the base. As daylight broke, they saw a former community down below from the hills they were on and John called out for information on the terrain to one of the mechanical troops nearby.

John Henry's voice broke out over the radio's, "Current location is one and a half miles north north east of Thousand Oaks, California. Radiation levels are medium level risk, suggested cover would be on the farthest edge of the city from the blast." The radio went silent for a few seconds before his voice returned, "Proper cover could be attained via the Newbury Park High School currently south west of your current position."

John thanked the AI for its assistance then radioed Ellison at command, "This is Connor, our transport was hit en route to the op site. Currently in the remains of Thousand Oaks, requesting transport from former Newbury Park High School over?"

The team around John scanned the vicinity with their guns before Ellison's voice crackled over the com, "Copy John, sit tight and we will be there as quick as we can."

The radio went dead and they all doubled timed it down the hill and into the former city down below. It was a long hike, especially since the city was lined with non-stop apartment complexes. Every time they cleared on row of houses, another one was right behind it, and the blast wave from Los Angeles made it one mountain of rubble after another. It had taken nearly two hours for them to hike across the destroyed landscape, but that was a feat in and of itself, but now they all quietly entered the remains of the high school John Henry had spoken of.

They all moved into the central area of the rubble, mostly to conceal their heat signatures and to be protected from the elements as much as possible. Everyone found their own small place of comfort and began sleeping with periodic watches, waiting for the transport to arrive. John stood out away from the group, watching them from a outcrop above.

All of them looked peaceful as they slept, not attune to the surroundings at all. John heard footsteps behind him and drew his pistol only to see Angela coming up and sitting beside him. Considering that he had just shot her only a few hours before the op had been planned, she looked relatively at ease in his company.

"Smoke?" she asked as she sat down on the rock next to him and offered him first dibs on a pack of cigarettes she was carrying.

"Sure," he said while suppressing a yawn. John hadn't smoked in over two years. The last time he had, Cameron had...

He let the memory fade into the abyss of his mind as he took a long white stick from her carton and put it in his mouth. John took out his lighter and lit up the death stick, inhaling a lungful of smoke as he handed the lighter to Angela. The thoughts were pushed from his mind as the nicotine hit his blood stream and he exhaled slowly.

Angela watched her commander slowly while he seemed to be lost in thought. She rolled her eyes slightly before taking a long drag out of her cigarette herself, _damn I love that feeling._

"You know John, you don't always have to be the hard ass you know?" she said while blowing a puff of smoke out of the corner of her mouth in an attempt to keep it out of his face.

John chuckled, "Now _that's_ funny, coming from you there Angie." He gave her a sly smile before taking another puff out of his cigarette.

Angela returned his joking mood with a jest of her own, nudging him in his ribs. She winced in pain as the movement of the muscles irritated her hand again. John looked over and popped the cigarette into his mouth to free up his hands then motioned for Angela to let him check her hand.

With reluctance she showed him her hand and John removed the bandage. He could see that a slight infection was starting to set in, which in that day and age meant almost certain death. He eased the bandage off of her hand and threw it away.

"This is gonna feel funny," he said as he took another long puff of smoke. John reached into his bag and pulled out an unlabeled brown bottle of liquid.

Angela quirked an eyebrow at the bottle as John took the cap off and poured the clear liquid onto the bullet wound. The liquid was freezing cold as it hit her skin, and she winced from the feeling. Bubbles were forming on the wound as it liquid began oxidizing the infection, _hydrogen peroxide?_

"You know that stuff goes for a hundred packs of cigs right?" John nodded at her but kept on working, "Ain't exactly cheap."

John puffed out a wisp of smoke from between his lips, "It's not meant to be cheap. Its meant to keep you from loosing your hand, now keep still." He took a firm hold of her wrist that made her wince in pain.

The bubbles had settled down now and he blew them out of her wound, dabbing the rest with a rag from his jacket. John reached back and replaced the brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide back in his sack and drew out a brown glass bottle of a dark liquid. This one had the label ripped off of it, but Angela could tell it was iodine.

John dipped the rag in the bottle and smeared the brown liquid over her hand before putting the cap back on the bottle and sitting it down. He got up and took off his jacket and shirt underneath it. Angela wondered what in the hell he was doing before he ripped the shirt up into a strip, and proceeded to wrap it around her hand.

"John, I'm sorry bout the other day. I shouldn't have snapped like that," she began before he held up his hand to quiet her down.

"I caused it, my duty to make it better. Keep it dry, and come back for a changing twice a day from now on," John said. "Now go sleep, I'll be on patrol for ya."

Angela nodded in thanks, "Still, I shouldn't have acted that way towards her. It wasn't right. I knew that the moment she threw herself in front of me to shield us from the machines." Angela threw him a sympathetic look before motioning over his shoulder, "Won't be a need for that patrol." John looked over her shoulders to see Ellison's bus come rolling up from the distance. "Wake em and move out?" she asked.

"Yea, we need to get out of here before the radiation starts getting to us," John said and stood to put his jacket back on.

Angela smirked before getting up and yelling over to the men down below, "On your feet! Transports here, lets move it out of here."

The men all woke up and gathered their things before leaving the cover of the school. John hailed down the bus as it rounded a corner and headed in their direction. He saw Ellison behind the wheel and the man brought the bus to a stop right in front of where the men were.

James climbed down the steps of the bus and moved aside for the men to board. He turned to John after looking around for a moment or so, "You guys all okay?"

Connor smirked and threw the butt of his cigarette on the ground, grinding it out with his boot, "We are bleeding, but we can manage."

Just then a noise off from behind them all drew their attention and they all raised their weapons to fire on the threat. John was quick to spot the source and ordered the men, "STAND DOWN!"

A block or so away from the bus was a small brown haired girl running towards them with ragged clothes, and she seemed to be covered in dirt. She kept running as Ellison turned to the men on the bus, "Get some blankets down here."

They started passing the blankets forward while John lowered his rifle and started walking towards the little girl. His arms beckoned her forward when he saw another figure emerge from the building behind the girl. John started to raise his rifle again before he saw it was a woman, probably the girls mother.

The girl had reached John now and lifted her arms up to him like he was a long lost uncle. John crouched down and picked her up, resting her on his right arm, he stood back up and beckoned the woman over. She seemed to hesitate at first before hurrying over after her daughter.

John turned back to the little girls head which was leaning on his right shoulder, "So whats your name?"

"Allison," she said innocently.

Every muscle in his body froze up at once, "Allison Young?" She nodded sheepishly before burying her head in his shoulder again.

The woman had now reached John and he turned around to face her, and the ten or so other people now crawling out of the rubble of the building.

"Allison," she said holding out her hands, "come here sweetie." Allison reluctantly let go of John and switched hands to her mothers neck.

"You guys need help ma'am? We have plenty of food and shelter back home," John said, his voice caught in his throat again.

The woman nodded in a mocking fashion, "Yea right, last time we heard talk like that we were lead into a group of cannibals. No way we are going through that again..."

Her voice trailed off as her eyes left John's face and fell to his chest where the name badge on his jacket rested, "...You're him aren't you?" A glimmer of light started to shine in her eyes. "...you're John Connor?"

John relaxed his stance and let the butt of his rifle rest on his boot as he looked back over to the woman as Ellison came running up with a few extra blankets, "Yes ma'am."

James started handing over a blanket before the woman turned and blindly beckoned to the hesitant group behind her, who were still partially hidden in the ruins, "Guys its okay...It's Connor!"

The group, once sheepish and afraid, now nearly ran up to where Allison and her mother were. All of them ran their eyes up and down the young General, before whispering his name to themselves.

"Like I said ma'am, we have plenty of shelter and food back at base if you guys wanna tag along," John turned his head back to Ellison, "I'm assuming we can make room on the bus of course, once the _other _guys get off." John hoped his message to Ellison would make itself clearly known, the mechanical soldiers of John Henry needed to make themselves scarce quickly.

James smiled over at the woman and child, "Of course we can, now come on you guys lets get going." John heard the rear door of the bus opening and the metal soldiers exiting the bus to make room for the humans, _they could job along behind us. Not __like they'd get tired._

The group turned and started following Ellison back to the bus as Allison and her mother remained in front of John. He opened a pouch on his pack and drew out a canteen of water and an old granola bar, handing it to the woman standing in front of him.

She looked at him as the glimmer in her eyes turned to tears, "Thank you...thank you." The woman reached out and took his offering happily before giving it to Allison.

John stepped aside and raised his hand for them to make their way to the bus, "After you ma'am." They all loaded up onto the bus and began their journey back to home base. _Maybe it wasn't a total waste, _John thought.

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: Ludicrous**

* * *

_ Trust. _

_ It's such a basic human principle that everyone takes for granted._

_ If I were to trust everyone that spoke to me, I'd be dead in ten minutes from a knife to the back._

_ Trust isn't given, its earned. And for me that goes both ways._

_ I can expect someone to follow an order, or to do as I ask them, but that doesn't mean they are going to do it._

_ People are funny that way. Even though I'm beginning to hate him, it's much easier to deal with John Henry then it is a simple human being._

_ Sure, John Henry had his secrets, but humans could have ten ulterior motives going on at the same time, and you would never know a single one of them until they wanted you to._

_ With me it was simple, do what you could to save everyone, and destroy Skynet._

_ As far as ulterior motives go, try not to get stabbed in the back._

* * *

**Serrano Point, California**

**July 26, 2013**

**11:53AM**

* * *

It was nearly noon when Murch rolled up to the Serrano Point resistance base. The van was running on fumes of gas when he pulled up into the old parking lot on the exterior of the building. What seemed like a lively plant from a distance was something that looked eerily dead up close, minus the smoke rising from one of the towers. Though before he could even reach for the door handle there were about ten resistance members training their guns at him, nervous at the new arrival to their base.

"I have a package," he yelled through the closed windows of the cab. "...For Connor...Its from John Henry." Murch gulped a large volume of air as the man nearest to his window raised the rifle slightly at the mention of John Connor's name.

They all kept their guns trained on him while one member went to fetch John, who remarkably took his time considering Murch's life was in the balance. After what seemed like forever, Connor finally strolled out of the plant and ordered the lowering of their weapons. The young man walked up beside Murch's vehicle and motioned for him to roll the window down.

"How have you been Murch?" John looked as if nothing were out of place in the world._ Why is he acting like this? _Thought Murch, _They have freaking guns pointed at my face!_

_ "Busy," Murch joked halfheartedly. "_Listen I have a package for you from John Henry. He's been teaching him some reprogramming skills. Said you would know who he is. Danny Dyson sound familiar to you?"

John's eyes widened with surprise before narrowing back down to their customary thin state, "Sergeant, get the man out of the back and bring him inside."

Murch looked over and saw the youngest member of the team hustle over to the back of the van and begin unloading the young Dyson. Kyle Reese began carrying the unconscious Dyson inside while Murch stepped out of the van and faced John.

"Listen, I'm told there is supposed to be a shipment of plastic coming in sometime in the near future. I have orders to pick it up and transport it to John Henry's prime-1 facility in Detroit," said Murch. He still was nervous as hell considering the members of the resistance still hadn't lowered their weapons.

John's eyes studied the man in front of him carefully before saying, "Now that's curious Murch. I don't recall telling anyone about the shipment coming in from Australia. So how is it you know it exists, let alone that there is something I don't know about on board?"

Murch gulped another gallon of air and muttered, "John Henry, he told me to pick up the load of plastic and bring it to Prime-1."

"I don't know about plastic. We have a shipment of _ceramic_ coming in, but I don't know anything about plastic being here...unless." John's face scrunched up as his blood began to boil, "Did John Henry even mention to you once about there being more then one thing on the shipment to this base?"

Murch could see the anger rising in John and nervously nodded his head in reply. _Shit! He didn't tell him? Why wouldn't he tell him?_

"Dickson!" John growled, "Start up that goddamn radio, I want to speak to John Henry, now!" The young man turned around and stomped back into the plant, leaving Murch outside with the remaining resistance members.

Murch looked around sheepishly at the group of men before joking, "So uh...nice place you all got here." He was meet with a resounding chorus of groans at the joked before they all turned and entered the base together.

John had already made it into the control room though and was furiously hailing John Henry on his private channel, "If you don't come in I swear to you I am dismantling every component in your servers, one at a time!" The men in the room with the General all tried to look as if they were minding their own business but with someone yelling at the top of their lungs inside of a small room, that was a hard feat to accomplish.

The radio receiver in John's hands finally came to life, "Yes John?" John Henry's voice was casual and calm, just like it always was.

"You care to explain how Murch is here trying to pick up a shipment of plastic when it hasn't even gotten here yet? Oh and by the way, when the hell were you planning on letting me know in the first place?" John seethed into the speaker before depressing the mic button.

For a few seconds there was silence on the line before the AI's voice came back, "I didn't think it was a priority to make the existence of the plastic known."

"_Not a priority,_" John's hands were literally shaking he was so angry, "Anytime something comes into this base and I do not know what exactly it is, that is a risk to everyone here you fucking machine. Do you understand that? Now what the hell do you want with a load of plastic."

"It is not what I want the plastic for," said John Henry, "it is what my brother wants it for."

Everyone in the room visibly tensed, they all shared the same though. _The AI finally turned and was helping Skynet._

"What do you mean _what does Skynet want_ with the plastic?" asked John, a little more curiously then angrily.

"The predictions of Cameron have been correct somewhat in their ability to plot the development of my brother and his machines. Some of the predictions, such as the T-1 development and the plasma rifles, have been correct. However I found it odd that my brother is already manufacturing T-450 units, which leads me to believe he is a year or so away from producing the 600 series," the AI said. "The 600 series will be the first units he makes with a skin covering over the metal endoskeletons, I thought it prudent to take away his ability to develop such a skin by confiscating it for myself."

John quirked an eyebrow up, "And just what is it that you want with the plastic?"

"I intend to begin making CPU's with the component I already have access to and the plastic. Their invention will allow me to save on processing power, by not having to manually control every unit that I command around the globe."

It made sense, John had to give him that, but he still couldn't excuse the AI's behavior, "You and I are in this together. We do not keep secrets from each other. Understood?"

"Yes," came the only reply before the radio went dead with static.

John stood in place for a short while before setting the receiver down and marching back to his barracks, "Shoot me now," he muttered under his breath.

As John walked down the stairwell to the ground floor he saw Ellison's prayer group down below. Everyone looked like they were a mixture between grieving and contentment in the group. One woman sitting next to Allison's mother was shaking her shoulder uncontrollably while everyone around her was trying to bring her some form of comfort.

The woman cried out from the group though in incoherent sentences, to John he though she might have been 'speaking in tongues' before he notices a lick or two of Spanish in there. His mind struggled to translate everything while she continued to spit it out in rapid fire succession.

"El diablo, el diablo llevo a mi marido. Yo nunca lo vi de nuevo. Las Maquinas han tomado todo el mundo, y pronto vendran por todos vosotros! Le doy esta advertencia ahora, ten cuidade con el demonio de ojos rojos!" John's mind came up with a rough translation of, "The devil, the devil took my husband. I never saw him again. The machines have taken everyone, and soon they will come for you all! I give this warning now, beware of the red-eyed devil."

Ellison and the others were trying to calm her down, but it didn't look like any of them spoke Spanish. John spoke up from the sidelines, "Senora? Senora1"

The woman stopped her cries and turned towards John, so did everyone else in the group, "Tienes que ser fuerte ahora, mas fuerte que alguna vez penso que podria ser. Es lo que su esposo hubiera querido / You have to be strong now, stronger than you ever thought you could be. It is what your husband would have wanted."

She didn't respond, not even with a nod, she merely sat back down in the huddled prayer session and closed her eyes to begin praying again. Ellison looked to the woman and then back to John before giving him a thankful nod. John gave a halfhearted smile to Ellison and Allison's mother before descending the basement stairwell and making his way to his room.

He set his things down slowly before collapsing on his bed. His muscles were aching from the thirty-two hour watch that he had been stationed on. John turned over onto his side to start and fall asleep before he saw the purple jacket on the strategy table, still folded perfectly; just like it had always been since that day. He turned over again to keep from having to look at it while his eyes were open.

_What would she tell me to do right now?_ He thought. _John Henry keeping secrets, more and more people being found alive everyday, Skynet discovered plasma rifles, and now John Henry drops the bomb that the T-600 is going to be here in another year or so. What the hell else has changed?_

If there was one thing his mind gained a little bit of comfort from during his thought process, it was that things had speed up. Cameron had told him that the T-600's wouldn't be coming online until 2018, but now they were going to be online sometime around 2014. If everything else had changed, just like the development cycle, that meant the war would be over in another three or four years. That thought brought him a small amount of peace before he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

**Serrano Point, California**

**July 31, 2013**

**4:32AM**

* * *

The radio inside the control room crackled to life as Dickson was wiping the sleep from his eyes trying to stay awake on his late shift, "Roo calling Serrano Point, Roo calling Serrano Point. Anybody there? Over."

His hand lifted to his ear as he hit the receiver and accidentally yawned into the radio, "...Roo, we copy."

"Bout time you humpys picked up the mic, been hailing you for an hour," squawked an Australian woman's voice. "So who is this Joe Bloggs I'm speaking to?"

Dickson responded with an, "I'm sorry?"

"Oh...right...who am I speaking to on the other side of this microphone?" the woman said slowly, obviously the man didn't know Aussie lingo, she didn't see the need to burden him with it any further.

"Andrew Dickson, are you the package we've been waiting for?"

"Yea I guess, mate." replied the woman's voice. "We are about..." the radio went silent for a moment, "two knots away from the shore. Do you mind stringing up some lights or something for us to judge our distance so we don't come crashing up on your pretty beach?"

"Copy, out." replied Dickson before he grabbed the com radio on his shoulder, "Attention personnel, shipping vessel is approaching, friendlies are on board. We need a lighting beacon on the beach as soon as possible and someone alert Connor that they've arrived."

He got the replies from Kyle Reese about the beacon and Derek Reese had responded that he would wake up Connor. Dickson laid back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk proudly, "What would they do without me?" he joked before falling off to sleep again.

John was woken by Derek and out on the beach in less then two minutes. He looked out on the beach and saw that most of his reliable soldiers were already there and waiting for the boat to arrive. Kyle, Derek, Angela, William, Perry, and even Danny Dyson were all waiting with their eyes trained on the blackness. John's eyes strained through the binoculars to see the shipping vessel on the horizon but he couldn't, and the only sound that filled his ears were the sounds of the waves crashing against the beach about two-hundred feet out in front of him. _If they were at all smart, they would keep themselves dark as much as possible, _thought John.

His time spent in the future let John know that Skynet did in fact use ships as transport between the eastern and western hemispheres. Skynet didn't have any need for lights, the units it commanded could see in the dark. So keeping yourself dark while out at sea gave you the chance of tricking Skynet into thinking your were one of its transports.

Angela and Derek were standing next to John with their rifles raised, scanning the black ocean out in front of them, while Kyle stood out in front with a single palm sized LED light that pierced the darkness. After thirty minutes of waiting, John almost rose Dickson from his sleep up in the radio room before he saw the lifeboat from the vessel coming up to shore.

After a few more minutes of them fighting the undertow, the lifeboat was finally being dragged up onto the beach. Four people got out and helped Kyle drag it up on the beach; a woman, two men, and a small girl that couldn't have been any older then ten. They all heaved the boat up into the sand before they couldn't pull it anymore.

"Step aside, I'll take it from here," said John as he turned around and whistled with his fingers.

John Henry's mechanical soldiers came in from the darkness and started to pull the boat up the beach, away from the soon to be high tide. The members of the ship all stared incredulously as the machines dragged the heavy boat up the sand like it was nothing.

They turned to Connor, "Are you out of your mind? You're mad as a cut snake if you have metal roaming around like a free horse!" said the female captain of the boat.

John stared at them, puzzled, "I have no idea what that first part means. But you don't have to worry, they don't fight us, they fight Skynet."

The woman walked towards John as if she were about to school him, "It means your a bloody idiot that's what it means." She pointed towards one of the metal soldiers, "They're machines. They don't belong here."

John returned her attitude in full, "If you don't like the way I run things here, you are welcome to leave."

"And that's exactly what we'll be doing as soon as the shipment is off our boat." She turned to her child, "Come on you little rug rat, lets get you to bed."

They all left and entered the base while Angela turned to John, "I don't like the metal anymore then they do, but if they cause a problem at the base..."

"They won't," said John.

"_If_ they do, they are going to freak everyone out. You think dealing with four people is crazy, try and think about how its gonna be to deal with the entire base of three-thousand if they freak people out," said Angela. "First thing in the day, they need to be on that ship and out of here John."

John turned and began walking up to the base with Angela, she was right and he knew it. He hated to nearly throw people out of the base, even if they were willing to go. Murch came nearly sprinting (his version of sprinting) out of the base and stopped in front of John, panting like crazy.

"Is it here?" he gasped for air.

"Yea, but it hasn't been offloaded yet. The units are still dragging it up the beach and then they'll offload everything," said John.

"I can't wait that long," exclaimed Murch, "I have orders to be in Detroit by August second, and I'm not missing that deadline."

John's eyes narrowed at the man standing in front of him, "You will wait until the supplies are taken off the boat and then wait your turn until the plastic is loaded into your van, which by the way is stocked to the max with medical supplies and equipment. You mind telling me what a bunch of machines need with..."

John's words faded as his brain started putting two and two together, "He's making skin isn't he...That's what the son-of-a-bitch is doing. He's making skin for the cyborgs."

Angela looked slightly horrified and annoyed at Murch, "What are you some kind of sick puppet that does what ever the metal says?"

Murch gulped hard, "I have no idea what he has planned but he said that if you questioned anything to tell you: you will see."

Angela snapped back at the man, "What the hell does that mean you twit?"

John cut both of them off, "It means we will see. Mr. Much," the man turned and faced John, "if I don't _see_ real soon, you can deliver a message to John Henry for me."

Murch nodded, "Yea...uh sure."

John spoke, "Tell him he has two months to get his shit together, and quit running around with all these secrets; or I'm going to ship his ass, and yours overseas to Britain for eastern command to deal with. Do I make myself crystal clear?"

Murch nodded and waited patiently as the mechanical units began offloading the ceramic carefully and placing it inside of the base. Once they finally finished that task, he oversaw the transfer of the plastic into the back of his van. After fueling up with a few extra cans of gas to spare, he headed off for Detroit to finally begin his _real_ mission.

* * *

**Prime-1. Detroit, Michigan**

**August 2, 2013**

**7:18AM**

* * *

The facility looked deadly quiet as Murch pulled into the ramp for offloading his materials. Once inside he pretty much didn't have to do anything, all of the JH-1 units of John Henry's did all of the work. They very efficiently offloaded the entire package of plastic (nearly half a tons worth) and took the medical supplies out in under ten minutes.

Murch walked over to the last unit carrying the final piece of medical equipment to the far side of the room. It walked through a pair of double doors and as Murch stepped through them he was taken aback by what he saw.

Row after row of machines were laying in pods along the walls of the room. In the very center aisle there was enough room for a massive hub of electrical equipment that looked like it didn't belong inside the old automobile factory at all.

"Mr. Much, the sample please?" came John Henry's voice from the computer terminal. A unit came up and stood in front of Murch with its hand outstretched.

Murch dug into his pocket and pulled out the bags of hair he had been instructed to collect from random people at the Serrano Point facility. The unit in front of him took the bags and carried them off to the medical equipment on the edge of the room. Murch continued to gawk at the room as the chemicals were mixed into the machines he had collected from various places in California.

After the mixture had settled back down in the vats, a suction pump began feeding it through tubes which ran up from the pump and along the ceiling. Each tube then led to a single pod which began filling with the liquid, covering the machine inside. Murch walked up to the sole recipient of the liquid and stared at it oddly.

The machine looked different then the others that were traipsing about the room, but then again it was a new unit. With new units always come upgrades, but this one looked amazing compared to the others. Before Murch could study it anymore the liquid had filled the pod and a countdown timer began across the screen on top of the window. He stepped aside to the next one and saw that this unit too, was different from the active ones, but also different from the previous pod.

Murch studied pod after pod, each one containing a differently designed machine, all similar in some aspects, but each one unique. He was about to ask John Henry what was going on before he was told to go to the sleeping quarters set aside for him, and to wait until the timer expired on the first unit. Murch looked back over to the first unit and read the nameplate again:

C0001.P

39 days, 23 hours, 56 minutes

_This is going to be a long one,_ he thought before exiting the room and making his way to the bed.

* * *

**Serrano Point, California**

**August 5, 2013**

**10:47AM**

* * *

John slammed his fist down on the table hard, "Listen to me you can't do this! It's suicide."

The voice from the speaker chimed in again, "Connor, why don't you go out on some more babysitting missions when you feel like it. Me and my men are actually trying to win this war!"

Perry and everyone else in the room looked up at John waiting for a response while the young man seethed in anger at the intercom, "I'm telling you this for the last time. You can't do it, abort the mission now!"

"I've had enough of your so called leadership," chimed in another voice, "I go for a vote of no confidence in Connor's ability to lead this war."

Other voices chimed in after the other two men, the voted ended in a 5-2. Two siding with John staying on as leader, five voted against him. "Major Perry, as our liaison in the Serrano Point facility. I hereby nominate you to be placed in command of all resistance fighters there, effective immediately. John Connor is to be detained and not allowed access to any military personnel for the remainder of his stay. Is that clear?"

Perry's eyes shifted haphazardly to the intercom resting on the table, "Y...Yes sir." He turned a sympathetic gaze over to John before saying, "I'm sorry John."

A detail of two men moved in behind John as they escorted him from the room. He started shouting as they put their hands on him, "You don't know what you're doing! You've just killed us all! Let me go!"

Angela, Hendricks, the Reese brothers, and Perry all looked like they had been kicked in the gut for the orders coming from their new general. "The boy was weak. Given command like it was his birthright or something. Weaklings don't win the war, Generals do. This is General Lakewood speaking, if anyone disagrees with the commands set forth from this point, consider yourself AWOL." the line went dead as they all remained silent after the meeting was over.

John was lead from the room and thrown back into his sleeping quarters with slight disdain. Not everyone agreed with his command and he knew that, but they idiots didn't seem to realize that you can't plow in there with guns loaded. All they were going to accomplish was getting people killed.

Up until then he had been pretty even with his command, liberating prisoners to build up the survivors and resistance numbers. John had no doubt in his mind that one day soon they would have to begin the actual war with Skynet, not just raiding parties, but now was not the time. They were all unprepared, and without John's involvement John Henry would surely not cooperate at all. Which in turn meant the entire eastern hemisphere was being led by John Henry, and the western hemisphere was under the control of morons.

Trigger happy people, they were the most dangerous kind of people in a war. That was something his mom had told him, always be on guard when around people that are itching for a fight. If nothing presents itself, they will instigate one sooner or later just to have a pissing contest.

Days and weeks started passing by, and John found himself trying to keep himself busy to keep his mind from wandering. It was remarkable what he had found out about his room while incarcerated there. There were twelve concrete blocks that made up the walls and ceiling of his room, eight-hundred-seventy-four rocks and pebbles were scattered around the floor, the radio that the resistance members had smashed on his table had ninety-eight holes in it, and forty-seven lines running diagonally across the speaker.

He started noticing patterns too, everyday at the same intervals he was brought a meal by either Perry, Angela, or Hendricks. Each of them would make a comment on how bad he was looking, at what he thought was twilight Allison and her mother would come by for the little girl to say goodnight from outside his door, and by midnight he would have nightly visits by Angela.

They didn't do much, mostly talk. She would inform him about what all was going on during that day. On the first visit, she looked pretty beat up, and said it was from a run in with an aerial unit. John tried to give her hints and tips on how to deal with the machines to pass onto the others as much as he could, but without his assistance in the field they would always have the short end of the stick.

The second day she came in, Angela told him that the shipmates had all packed and left except for the young girl. The mother had pleaded, oddly enough, for her daughter to remain behind and told her to behave. Angela told him that the girl, Jesse, was staying with her in her barracks and that she'd taken quite a liking to Kyle, but treated Derek with the hatred of a thousand suns. Knowing that the girl, if she was the same Jesse he remembered, would inevitably wind up with Derek made John laugh as she told him that.

The nights were the worse though, and John couldn't deny that. Every night was another tread into a nightmare, and they never relented. Night after night came and went as he dreamed of everything his subconscious could throw at him. Dreams of his mother, his uncle, Charley, Ellison, Weaver, the war he had fought in the future, those that had died under his command, the T-1000 chasing him through the river drains of LA. All of them kept playing on repeat as the days wore on.

Soon his visitors stopped coming, well that wasn't entirely true, the only one that continued to see him was Angela. Perry had nearly been killed in a storm on a Skynet HK factory was what she had told him, he was in the infirmary in a coma. They had some new guy, Sanchez, that was running things until Perry was back on his feet. That was the night he found out how much time had passed, it was September 9, 2013.

The next night he didn't receive a visitor, and his mind started thinking about everything that could have possibly happened to Angela and his men. There were only so many possibilities that he could think of. Either they had been sent out on a mission and been killed, they were all in the infirmary, they had been ordered to move to another base, or they were forbidden from seeing John now.

That night was perhaps the worst that John endured during his time in isolation from everyone else. That night he did have a visitor, though not one that he expected, John had started hallucinating. First it was Charley sitting at his table working on his busted radio. John kept yelling at him to leave while he still could but Charley just sat and asked him for a phillips-head screwdriver. It took all night for him to convince himself that the man sitting across from him wasn't real.

After that night, it was his mother. She spent the entire night trying to convince him to storm the base and take over control. John kept telling her that the door was barred, that he had no means of escape, but Sarah was persistent. Faking his own death, that would surely attract attention. She had nearly convinced him too before the door opened and he was given his breakfast by Angela.

Her eyes were wide in shock as she saw John pacing about the room talking to someone in the corner that wasn't there. To Angela it didn't even look like he noticed her open the door before he ran out and attacked her. John had jumped on top of her like a madman, trying to punch out at vital areas and failing with every blow. Angela hated to do it but she yelled for the guard, who had to pry John up off of her.

His eyes were wild as they danced around the room while he was still talking to people. John was answering questions and asking them to people in the room, people that weren't there. _He really has lost his mind this time, _she thought before her and the guard had to back out of the room slowly.

As they left, his mother sat down at the table and started picking at the food on his plate.

"You can't eat this John. They locked you up in here to get rid of you, this is probably poisoned," she looked over at him with a dead serious expression.

"Poisoned," he kept whispering quietly.

John was still whispering the word to himself when Angela opened the door again for his lunch. She set his tray of food down and saw that he hadn't even eaten the breakfast.

"John?" she hesitantly stepped forward and rested her hand on his left shoulder. He flinched at her touch and looked up at her, but his eyes never focused. It was as if he was looking directly through her and at the wall.

"John," she repeated, "John its me. Angela."

John's head twitched when she said her name, "Angela's dead." His voice was steady, but quiet.

"John? I'm right here," she picked up his hand and squeezed it slightly, "See? I'm right here, John."

"Angela's dead," he told the wall. "Angela was sent on a mission to Skynet and now she's dead."

Angela shook her head and grabbed John's head forcefully, "John, _I_ am Angela. _I'm_ here. _I'm_ alive."

"You are not alive, you're a machine. A machine sent by John Henry to trick me," he turned his head to the closed door and shouted, "You think you can trick me don't you? The jokes on you then! You hear me? The jokes on you!"

Angela let her grip go and let her shoulders sag, her head was tilted towards the floor as she walked over to the door and opened it. Before she closed it behind her she whispered, "I'm sorry John."

John watched the door close and turned back to his mother and uncle, "See? They try and trick you all the time. You have to be vigilant John. Don't trust them for anything!" Both of them kept repeating those phrases for the next two days as his stomach began to ache more and more from hunger. A soldier came to the door during the night and told him they were all planning an escape, and they would be there to rescue him in the morning.

The next morning Ellison came to see him, there was no rescue mission, the man had never existed. James said that he wanted to pray with John. _As if praying will do anything, _"Prayer won't stop Skynet, James." John kept repeating that for the entire time he was in the room. James finally sighed and left the barracks, only to be replaced by Riley.

She sat down next to him and picked up his hands, "I used to go all crazy too ya know?" Her blue eyes bored into his, "I used to sit around when you weren't around and think about loosing it all. But I...things got better after I started having these _thoughts_."

"Thoughts," John repeated.

"Yea John, Jesus you're reminding me of your weirdo sister," she brushed her hair behind her ear before continuing, "Like sometimes I'd just sit around and think about what it would be like to die. I guess I got to try it out, with the whole wrist incident and all. So what is your plan cat fancy?"

John shook his head, he honestly didn't know what he was supposed to do, "I...I dunno."

"You can try it too you know," she looked up at the light hanging down from the ceiling, "all it takes is a small cut."

John looked up at the light and snatched his hands away from her, "Get the hell out! You're not real." He ran over to the corner and threw the blanket over himself so he wouldn't have to look at her.

But Riley didn't leave, she stayed there crouched next to him on the floor whispering to him for the entire night about using the shards of broken light bulbs as a suicide instrument. His mother and Derek were yelling at her to stop, and they were all yelling so loud that John couldn't sleep.

After a few hours of their screaming he couldn't take it anymore. John stood up and flung the largest rock he could find at the light bulb and plunged the room into darkness. He slid back down along the wall as they all continued to talk to him in the pitch black room.

The morning came and the door opened with his food but the figure outside was hidden by the silhouette of the light outside in the hallway. John looked up at them, it was a female figure, the imposter Angela again no doubt. He sulked back into the corner and screamed at them to go away.

Another woman peered out from behind Angela's shoulder and said, "He's been acting like this for days, think you can do something about it?"

"I can," came _that_ voice. That voice made his hands start shaking, his jaw clench shut, and a rage begin building inside his chest.

_Skynet's finally done it, they made another Cameron. And now it's going to kill me,_ he looked over at Riley sitting on his bed, "I hope you're happy! You're finally getting your wish."

The imposter Cameron set his food down on the table near the other five days worth of rotting food, "John," she said casually, "it's time to eat."

"Go away, I know who you are. I know what you are!" he scratched the top of his head furiously over and over again, trying to avoid looking at the _thing_.

"John," it said more forcefully, "It's time to eat."

"I said no! Its poison," he said.

His mother was standing next to the fake Cameron and repeated his words, "It's poison, John. It's a trick."

The metal watched John turn his face to look at his mother, and it turned its head too before saying, "It's not poison."

John's mind snapped. He knew his mother was dead, Charley was dead, Riley was dead, and Cameron was dead. They were all here in the room with him, and they were all determined to drive him crazy.

"Enough! All of you out of my room," John spat out.

Everyone in the room, except Angela standing in the doorway, and Cameron standing in front of him said, "No."

Angela remained silent, and the fake Cameron replied with, "Only if you eat."

"I'm not eating your poison! GET OUT!" he screamed.

Cameron took a step towards him before crouching down beside John on the floor. He recoiled as she got closer and closer to him, "You want quiet?"

John nodded furiously.

Cameron looked over her shoulder and told everyone in the room, "John's with me now. You can all rest. Out of here now!"

And the most incredible thing happened, they left...

John looked up at her, "I know you aren't real, you need to leave too."

Cameron tilted her head slightly before holding out her hand. John eyed it nervously but reached out and took it nonetheless. She gripped it so hard that she sprained three of his fingers and nearly fractured his wrist, and never once did she blink during the whole ordeal.

Riley, Charley, Derek, and Sarah all ran back into the room before John. They were all yelling at Cameron to let his hand go but she didn't. John looked up at them for help but they didn't do anything. They all stood there and continued to yell, but they never once tried to actually stop Cameron from delivering her death grip.

John's face cried out in pain as he watched them all slowly dissolve in front of his eyes. After a few moments the only people that remained in the room were Angela, who still remained standing in the doorway, and Cameron who finally let his hand go.

He looked over at her face carefully before nearly choking on his words, "Cameron?"

"Yes John?" she asked, her eyes were still studying him to see if he was truly 'there'.

"I thought you were gone?" he shook his head in disbelief before opening his eyes and still saw her sitting in indian-style in front of him.

"I had to go away for a little while," she said innocently, "but only for a little while." Her voice stopped as he slowly came to the realization that Cameron was alive and sitting in front of him. She finally opened her mouth again and said, "I'm back."

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15: A New Dawn**

* * *

_I remember it like it was yesterday..._

_ I had come home and found an old VHS in mom's purse. That contained on it things that I wish I had never seen. They left me angry, and scared._

_ Mom had signed over her parental rights that day, making me legally not her son._

_ I remember being angry at her, while Derek, being the epitome of Derek, was the middle man during the whole situation._

_ He neither accepted her actions as the right thing to do nor did he ignore what she had done. He only told me that when locked up inside four walls, people change. People do things they didn't think they would normally do._

_ I didn't believe him at the time, merely telling him that some people never give up. And at the time I thought I was right, some people never stop fighting._

_ "Fewer then you'd think," was his reply. I now knew that to be true..._

* * *

**USA Resistance Command, Serrano Point**

**September 12, 2013**

**8:09AM**

* * *

It had only been one day since Cameron's return, and the visions that had plagued John during his exile had subsided. But it seemed that nothing, not even her presence could make the voices stop. They called out to him from his past during all hours of the day, playing tricks on him, whispering things in his ear, and trying to give him contradictory advice. It seemed that whenever his guard was down they came in full force. Luckily, he had Cameron to help keep him on his toes.

For nearly the entire day, she stayed with John in his room. He could hardly believe his eyes and had to force his eyelids to stay open. They ate meals together and discussed various things, mostly about what John had been doing in the room while he had been locked inside it. There were a few times John had stepped outside his room, but he immediately wanted to re-enter it again when he saw the stares from the other people begin to watch his every move. They made him nervous, and it seemed that only Cameron could calm him down.

The next day passed, and soon they began to pass more frequently as he spent time with his friend in their room. Though, there were times when Cameron couldn't be around him all day. Mainly they were his sleeping times, and her shower times. During the times when she was in the shower, he was mostly visited by Angela, who had began to open back up to the thought of her friend being a machine. She told him one day that it wasn't hard to believe she wasn't human, which made John cheer up slightly.

Ellison dropped by a few times as well, mostly wanting to finish that prayer he had started so many days ago. John silently sat and received the man's prayers before he would begin asking him what was happening out in the base while he had been locked away. Between their visits, John had a pretty good picture of what had happened to command after he had been removed.

"John," said Angela one day, "in the last month we've had twenty operations, _twenty_! Most of them full on attacks against warehouses or..or...or small forces of Terminators. Its like the bastards only care about winning as many battles as they can, and doing it as quickly as they can. Almost like they think the war can be won in a week."

"They aren't looking at the big picture then, "John said. He knew the members of command were reckless, but to up straight up attack forces of machines just to say you had done it was borderline insanity in his book. Then again Bryant and the other command leaders were the type of military personnel that only cared about things like counting kills. Most of them sat back and watched the war happen, they weren't up front and _in_ the war like John had been when he was in command.

Just then he heard his mother say, "They would be better off with you, John. They're supposed to be with you. Why are you sitting down doing _nothing!_"

Angela was still talking but he had the hold his hand up and shake he head for the voice to stop. After it had gone he asked Angela to repeat what she had said, "They think hammering Skynet down day after day will eventually cause it to surrender or something. Its a bunch of BS if you ask me."

"Skynet will take all the hammering they can dish out at it. Then it will learn during their supposed 'campaigns'. After that Skynet will take that information, turn around, and use it against everyone around the globe." Just as John finished talking, Cameron had entered the room and was drying her hair from the shower.

Angela got up and left the room, whispering something to Cameron before she exited the doorway. Cameron walked over to where John was sitting and watched him scratch the short but growing beard on his face. It was starting to itch, and over a month of no bathing had started to take its toll on his skin. Right now everything itched, it was just a question of how much he was willing to scratch in one area before he moved on to another.

"John, you need a shave," Cameron teased, after leaning down and sniffing him she added, "and a shower..."

John looked up at her like she was kidding. "I'm fine," he subverted. His eyes danced around the room while Cameron stood in front of him and reasserted her stance on him needing a shower.

"I'm not taking no for an answer, come on," she took his hand and picked him up off of the floor into a standing position.

As John stood up in front of Cameron his heart started beating faster and faster, "Cam I don't need to go out there." In truth he knew he did, he could smell himself, but the people that gawked at him outside made him extremely nervous about going into the shower room.

What happened next threw John for a loop, Cameron leaned in closely to him and stared into his eyes. Moments flew by as he looked back into her, waiting for her to speak. After what seemed like forever she finally spoke, "John, nothings going to happen to you." Her hands reached up and grabbed his, kneading comforting circles across his palms. John finally broke down and follower her out of the room.

* * *

The shower room was being used by a few people, but the thirty or so stalls in the room were nowhere near completely filled, which made John a little at ease when they entered it. They both made their way to the farthest stall away from everyone else in the left corner of the room. Cameron leaned in behind the curtain and turned the water on, then shoved John inside the shower, fully clothed. After she drew the curtain back, she leaned up against the wall and crossed her arms patiently waiting for him to finish. After a minute or so of hearing the water splash against his jacket, she heard him disrobe and the water begin to pelt his skin.

"John? Are you okay in there?" she asked. Cameron continued to lean against the wall with her arms cross as the people began exiting the other shower stalls and caught sight of her. Most people around the base had heard rumors that she was a machine and were already scared of her. Those that did catch a glimpse of her nearly ran out of the room, only a small five or six year old girl and her mother remained in the front-most stall. Cameron couldn't figure out why everyone seemed to be afraid of her, but was happy that somebody had chosen not to run away from the sight of her.

"I'm burning!" John repeated and tried to get out of the shower only to be pushed back through the curtain by Cameron's forceful hand.

Cameron knew that John would just try to get out again if she stood outside, so with a slight sigh she walked past the curtain and entered the shower with John.

John piped down and didn't even seem to notice that she was in the small room with him being pelted in the side of the face with warm water, while he stood in front of her with nothing on. Embarrassed slightly, he covered himself with his hands while slightly clearing his throat at the awkwardness of the situation.

Cameron ran her eyes all over his body and quickly discovered why John was experiencing a burning sensation even though the water was not that hot. There were large patches of dry skin that littered his body. Most of them had began flaking off like he was sun burnt. She turned around and lowered the hot water even more to the bar minimum that he could withstand, and the trickle from the overhead nozzle cooled within a tolerable level.

Even though the burning had settled down now, he still wanted out of that stall though, "Cam it burns, let me out."

"You aren't leaving until you're clean," she said before adding, "You freaking stink." Her face smiled at him in a teasing fashion before scrunching up again when she caught another whiff.

John finally relaxed, somewhat, and proceeded to let the semi-warm water slide down his body. Cameron took the bathing stick after his pores had opened somewhat and began sliding it as gently as possible down his skin. It was a bathing technique they had adopted from the ancient Romans and Greeks when they had ran out of soap to use. The only bad thing about it was the patches of skin were irritated every time the stick came over them.

Cameron gave one final look over of John as she turned the water off and the steam slowly lifted out of the stall. Even though he was now clean, he still looked like a hermit with his nearly two months worth of beard growth on his face. Just before she was about to ask him if he would prefer to keep it, John started scratching it again and the issue was settled.

"Stay in here," she said before walking out of the shower. John watched her walk across the room in her now soaking wet clothes. Her clothes left pools of water with every step she took as she came back with a bowl of warm water, a towel, and a razor.

"Her, sit down," Cameron told him, but John didn't move. "This would be a lot easier if you did what I asked John."

After a little more convincing, John finally relented to Cameron's wishes and sat on the floor before leaping back up at the sight of the razor that she drew out of her jacket. He tried to run but she grabbed his arm and held him in place. To him it looked like another one of his visions was trying to get him to kill himself again.

"John," Cameron said, her voice was calm and relaxing for him to hear. "I'm not here to hurt you." She kept her eyes steady with his as his heartbeat slowed back down beat by beat.

He relaxed somewhat and sat back down but John was still nervous that she was wielding a large blade in her hands. Cameron sat the bowl down at his feet and lowered herself down onto her knees. Trying to get him to relax even further, she smiled up at him before reaching down and picking up the towel. Cameron draped it around his shoulders and made sure it covered enough of his torso before reaching back down for the razor sitting in the warm water.

"This is going to sting a little, but we don't have any soap to use," she said with an expression full of sorrow before squeezing one of his hand to try and comfort him a little.

John was pleasantly surprised though when the razor first grazed his skin and there was no burning sensation, "No, its...its fine Cam."

Cameron smiled a gleaming beam of joy at him, "See, its not all bad," she teased. She lowered the razor to the bowl and deposited the hair from it before bringing it back up to his face for another swipe.

Suddenly the nervousness had a moment before returned when she brought the razor up near his neck, "Have you done this before."

Cameron looked at him with a smile and joked, "Nope."

John was halfway tempted to jump up and run from the spot but he stayed put, easing his back into the wall behind him. Cameron once again lowered the razor into the bowl before bringing it up to his face again. The hair was now discoloring the water as she sloshed the razor in it each time.

"Do you prefer up or down?" she asked while smiling. Cameron had shaved off everything above his jaw and was now about to start on the sensitive area of his neck.

John debated for a moment with himself, he honestly never gave much thought to how he shaved. Usually he just slouched over the sink and kept going over everything until it was gone, "Uh...up."

She started to work on the growing beard, and John tried to keep his head as still as he could. The last thing he wanted on his tombstone was, 'Cut his jugular while shaving because he couldn't keep his head still'. When she had finished his the left area, she moved across onto the right part of his neck and John started getting really nervous.

"I...I can get it from here," he said while his eyes ran all around the room. His heartbeat picked up again and his breathing started becoming more and more fast paced.

"John, your hands are shaking. One small nick and you would be bleeding out on the floor with this thing," she said, "Now sit still." Her free hand rested on the towel which covered the area of his chest where his heart lay, it calmed him down slightly, but only slightly.

He remained nervous for the rest of the time it took her to remove the itchy sandpaper-like hair from his face and neck. Cameron turned the shower on again long enough to splash his face once or twice to remove any stray hairs. "See," she teased again, "there was nothing to be afraid of you big wussy."

John's rough hands ran over his face before he brought them up in front of his eyes, looking for the inevitable blood marks, but surprisingly Cameron had not cut him even once. He continued to stare at his hands as she took the bowl back over to the drain before tossing him another towel from across the room.

"You need to cover up, John," she laughed, "There are families that use this place you know."

John covered himself with the towel and started to pick up his clothes from the shower stall before Cameron swatted his hand away, "Oh, _no_! Those are going to be burned, you'll get some new ones later." He thought she was joking again before he saw her nose crinkle at the smell coming from them.

John chuckled and they both turned to exit the room. Out in the hallway, it looked like the entire three-thousand people in the base were waiting for him outside. They began talking to themselves when they saw their former leader step out with the machine-girl they thought had died. Some of them cheered, but most of them either looked upset or disgruntled.

The voices started talking to John again, his mother and his uncle. Both of them kept telling him there were traitors in his midst, and that nobody could be trusted. John squinted and brought is fingers up to the cinch of his brow in frustration while trying to shake them from his head. They only left when Cameron reached down and took hold of his free left hand.

Angela moved out in front and started making a path for John to walk to the strategy room. People were reluctant to give up their standing positions, too eager to catch a glimpse of the young man who had remained in solitude for so long. Cameron kept hold of his hand and lead him through the crowd after Angela. The few people that were in the way after the rambunctious Latino automatically moved when they caught sight of Cameron. Many of them knew the stories of her mechanical nature, and were frightened that something so powerful existed near them.

Angela and Ellison both welcomed John back into the strategy room with open arms as he sat down at the head of the table. Many of the once familiar faces seemed a little cold or bitter towards his return, but their faces made up for the others.

"You should start getting briefed immediately," said Ellison.

John spoke up, "I've been told of all the op's by Angela. I know pretty much whats been going on." He settled back into his chair a little more before something grabbed his attention.

Something had caught John's eye and he turned to see person after person peeking into the entrance of the strategy room. Each of them wanting to get a glimpse of Connor, either for the legend that surrounded him, or the curiosity of the rumors. John motioned for the person nearest to the door to close it before they began anything else.

"Don't take this the wrong way Connor, but I want a transfer to the Nevada branch," said one man. Another followed suit and soon almost half of the peopled at the table were requesting leave.

John asked them, "Can I ask why?"

Eyes began shifting around the room, indicating they were too cowardly to confess the means for their betrayal. Finally the first man spoke up for the others, "We don't like you being manipulated by metal, _sir._"

John knew he couldn't force them to stay, Nevada (like everywhere else) was in desperate need of soldiers. Forcing them to stay would only increase their hatred, possibly make them snap, and disobey his orders with every chance they got. He thought about it for a moment before turning to Ellison.

"Make sure the bus is ready to leave by dusk, seems like we will be having a full load of soldiers to deliver to Nevada," said John.

Ellison nodded, and John turned back to the radio at his side, "Patch me through to John Henry."

Angela cleared her throat to get his attention, "Uh...John about that. Command..."

"Command what?" he asked a little forcefully.

The man from the rear of the table spoke before Angela could reply to John, "They toasted them metal fuckers. We don't need no dogs winning the war for us."

John turned to him, "Dogs follow orders. In that respect, everyone in this room is a dog, including you. Why would you want to kill off your fellow canines?" John's tone reflected the anger he was feeling quite well as the man quieted down.

Angela finally said, "They didn't trust the machines, John. Three days after you were detained, they disposed of all the units, and destroyed the Prime-1 place when they discovered its location. Tossed most of the remains out into the Pacific."

John seethed through his clenched jaw before a gentle hand laid on his thigh, causing him to momentarily forget what he was mad at, "For now is Perry still in charge?"

"That's right Connor," said the radio speaker sitting on the table, "Nobody in their right mind would put you back in charge. It is only because of Perry's recommendation that you be released that you are even outside of your room. You will follow the orders given to you via our Command or you will be put back into that room."

"Then I guess there's nothing more to add," John said and exited the room with Cameron by his side, leaving the radio yelling at him to return and take his orders.

* * *

Following his swift semi-induction back into the resistance, John preferred to stay alone in his room with Cameron at all times. Mostly to avoid the gaze of the people that lived in the base, but also to avoid having to deal with Command. The nights flew by as they caught up with each other over their meals.

John was surprised when one night Cameron asked, "John? How did I end up in the hospital?"

This struck John as odd, considering the only time she had ever stepped foot inside a hospital had been when Riley was in one for attempting suicide. "What do you mean, Cam?"

She looked both annoyed and confused by his question, "I had to go away for awhile, and now I'm back. But why did I have to go away?"

John set his sandwich down, "You don't remember?" Cameron shook her head slowly in reply.

"Well...uh...There was a charge of T-400's. You stayed behind and blocked them off while we escaped. The mountain collapsed and that was all she wrote," John tried to hurry up and finish the explanation as soon as possible. Even though she was sitting in front of him, John still didn't like to think about that day.

"And is that where I received my new arm?" she asked.

John again looked at her with a questionable expression, "What do you mean?"

"I was injured badly in the collapse. The next thing I remember after getting off of the bus that night is waking up in a hospital with Mr. Murch hovering over me," said Cameron. "He asked me a few questions, and I answered as best as I could. Then he told me I had lost my arm, and it had to be replaced with something John Henry had been working on."

"But you remember everything else?" asked John.

She tilted her head slightly before saying, "Bits and pieces. I remember who you are, but not how I know you. I know things about you, but not how I came to know them. I also know a little about myself, though a lot of my memories are fuzzy."

"Can you stay here for one moment?" John asked suddenly.

"Yes," she replied with a hesitant smile.

John left the room and made his way to the control room where Danny was sitting at his post. The young man had gotten a little taller since the last time John remembered seeing him, which was unconscious in the back of a van. He sat up straight when John entered the room, having been about ten seconds away from dozing off before he noticed Connor enter.

"You feel like pissing off Command?" John said aloud.

Danny turned his head with a smirk, "Always."

"Patch me in to John Henry," John ordered and waited patiently for the radio to turn on. After a few moments it crackled to life, "Connor to John Henry. Connor to John Henry, are you there? Over."

He released the button and turned to Danny, "Now would be a good time for you to take a five minute break Danny."

The man nodded and left the room while John Henry replied on the radio, "This is John Henry, it is good to hear from you again John."

"Was this what all the secrets were about? Were you rebuilding Cameron?" snapped John into the radio's speaker.

"I created an improved design for her to function with. She is capable of many things that her previous body is not. Though Mr. Dyson did damage her chip," replied John Henry in his customary monotone voice.

"He did _what_," John hissed while turning to Danny, who was standing outside on the catwalk with his back turned to John.

"Mr. Dyson attempted to learn the logic code of the Skynet CPU system but gained access to her internal AI core instead. I asked him to stop before Mr. Murch was forced to taser him. The static shock from his body transferred to the CPU and either deleted or altered many of the files inside of that sector," said John Henry.

"Is that why she is asking me about her arm being amputated?" asked John quickly. It was odd behavior for Cameron to be asking such a thing. The only time she wasn't asking him a variation of whether he was okay or not had been when she was experiencing a new emotion.

"I do not know, I was not able to discover the extent of the damage created by Mr. Dyson," John Henry replied.

John thought over the AI's words very carefully before responding, "So the damage is in-fixable?"

"Correct," came John Henry's response.

"Thanks for your time, and also it wasn't my decision to destroy the units and Prime-1," John's added on before his finger slipped off the mic button and he fumbled with it in his hands, "How are things on the Eastern front?"

The radio came back to life as he depressed the button, "Things are beginning to turn in our favor. Much of the middle east is a barren wasteland now. The entire Russian, Chinese, Indochina, and Indian area's of the world are completely Skynet free. Right now I am focusing the majority of my units on the Eastern and Western parts of Europe. Australia will require assistance soon though."

John asked another question, "When will you have more to help us out over here?"

"I cannot send units to help you, not while the other leaders are in Command, perhaps next December" said John Henry. "Sending them now would only ensure their demise, and the chances of my brother recovering them."

John chimed in, "And that's bad I take it?"

"My brother could use the technology found in my machines to hasten the development period of his own," stated John Henry. "Currently he has began producing T-600's albeit without the artificial covering as stated by Cameron earlier. The discovery and analysis of one of my machines would allow him to replicate or improve upon that technology and begin building true infiltrators."

John chuckled, "A simple, 'yes it's bad' would have sufficed John Henry. Connor out."

He placed the microphone back down on the table and headed outside the door, passing Danny on his way out, "Danny, what's the date?"

The young man looked up at Connor and hesitated for a moment, "December sixteenth sir."

John quirked an eyebrow at him, "You're sure? I was just let out of my room three days ago...or it seems like three days ago."

Danny showed him his wrist watch which had a small dial to tell the month and day. John was shell-shocked to find that it was in fact December 16, 2013. He turned after thanking Danny and started down the stairs. To anyone looking to notice him they would have seen a slight bounce in his steps now, and he seemed to have cheered back up to his normal self. John's cheery mood continued even when he arrived back at his room and found Cameron laying down, apparently asleep, on the bed.

John walked over to the bed and laid his hand on her right shoulder. She was turned over on her left side and facing the wall, but his shaking of her shoulder didn't wake her. _How can she go to sleep? She's a machine..._

With a little more force, John shook her shoulder again only to hear her mumble and nuzzle into the pillow._ I'll be damned, she really is asleep..._ He tried to shake her awake one more time only to have her groggily sit up on the bed, "mmph?"

"I'm going to dinner. Do you feel like going? Or do you want me to bring you something back?" he asked quietly.

Her voice was still drained from sleep while she muttered, "No..mmph...I'll get something later."

"Okay," he laughed, and eased her back down on the bed. Almost immediately, she fell back asleep and John was once again amazed that she could _in fact_ go to sleep.

He shook off the thought though, and resolved that it must be a by-product of the incident with her chip. John rose from the bed softly before tip-toeing to the door and leaving down the hall. He didn't really feel like sitting by himself or with Derek and Kyle and letting everyone stare at him, so he made his way to the meal station and grabbed two MRE's before heading back to his room.

Before he made it to the stairs to go down to the basement level, someone bumped into John's shoulder and nearly made him drop the two meals onto the ground. John recovered from the impact and sent a look of daggers in the man's direction.

"Hey you want to watch where you're going pal?" he said with disdain for the intruder. The man didn't respond, he kept power-walking around the corner and disappeared down the hall.

John shrugged it off as someone new to the base and continued walking down the stairs. At the bottom level, he turned and began making his way to the room when he heard a scream. He dropped the two meals and ran around the corner to see the man walking into the doorway of his room, with knife in his hands.

"Hey!" John yelled, and began running to the doorway.

As he entered the room he saw Cameron curled up in a ball in the corner of the room trying to get away from the encroaching man and his knife. Just as the man was about to charge and attack Cameron, John lunged and put the man in a sleeper hold. He thrashed around wildly with the knife but was unable to make a connection with John.

After the struggle continued for another few moments, the man finally relaxed and fell asleep from the grip of John's hands. Cameron was nervously shaking a little bit when John bent down to check on her. Her eyes were fearful when she finally turned from the wall and wrapped her arms around his neck. Ellison and Angela came running into the room while John hefted Cameron up and laid her down on the bed.

"What happened John," asked Ellison. His eyes looking around the room before settling on the unconscious man on the floor.

"He tried to attack Cameron...make sure to put him under watch. Command or not, I don't want him wandering around the plant freely. Put him on a death mute, but make sure he has all the food and company he wants," John said. His first order in nearly six months was carried out as if he were still the General of the resistance as Ellison and Angela escorted the man to an empty room and locked him inside it.

Ellison came back to the door and handed John a piece of paper, "Command wanted you to read this as soon as you could."

John eyed the paper but didn't take it, "What is it?" His tone of sarcasm laced with displeasure dripping from his tongue.

"Orders for a new mission in January," James replied.

John walked over and took the paper from Ellison's hands but still didn't look at it, "Thanks man. Anything else?"

Ellison's eyes snapped up from the paper in John's hands to the young man's eyes, "Stay safe."

"I always _try_," John chuckled.

James turned and left the doorway as Cameron looked up at John from the bed, "John?"

He turned and looked over his shoulder at her laying on the bed, "Yea Cam?"

"What mission are you going on?" she asked hesitantly, the fear still lingering in her voice.

John looked down and read the scribbled writing in his hands before saying, "Not me." Cameron looked up at him and tilted her head in confusion. He handed her the paper before going over and sitting down on the table, "They've ordered all of us to attack...they...they think they've found Skynet Central."

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: Raiding**

* * *

_Time seemed easier to manage when you didn't have the weight of the world on your shoulders._

_ Though that wasn't entirely true, I always had the weight of the world on my shoulders._

_ It was an occupational hazard of being John Connor._

_ The new General had been elected on Christmas day 2013, Ephraim Bryant. A whacky military brat that had grown up with the sole focus in life of being the next Rambo._

_ Only he found out really quickly just how suicidal it was to be someone like Rambo._

_ That character had maintained courage, honor, integrity, and survival skills. So far the only thing that Bryant had proved to me was that he was good at giving orders, and that was just about where the positive points ended in my book when concerning General Bryant._

_ One way or the other I was going to get that leadership back, and steer this war back on course._

_ Rookie Generals had no place in the battlefield, Bryant and every other man before him in the military had been in their service for years._

_ But nobody on Earth had fought against Skynet for as long as I have..._

* * *

**USA Resistance Command, Serrano Point**

**December 26, 2013**

**6:02AM**

* * *

A bump woke John up during the middle of the night and he hadn't been back to sleep since then. He didn't mind laying down next to Cameron while she 'slept' but she didn't have to keep turning over in her sleep every few minutes, _for the love of God please pick a spot and stay there Cam_. Once every ten or fifteen minutes she would unconsciously turn over, and her metallic arm would come crashing down on John's chest. He debated on whether to wake her or not, but it was damn near impossible to try and get her to wake up when she was 'asleep'.

That was one thing that John still had trouble wrapping his head around, the notion that she could _in fact_ sleep. Damage to her chip or internal, _structure, that's what John Henry said_, could cause her to go into standby mode, or at least that is what he assumed. He had caught her pretending to be asleep before when he had dozed off but woken up for a few seconds during the night. _Maybe that program isn't just a program anymore. The damage to her chip could be causing her to shut down or go into standby periodically and it takes over. _That was all he could think of at the moment, it wasn't like he could ask her, she didn't remember that she was a machine.

_Maybe if I can hail John Henry again and get him to explain..._another 'thump' pounded into John's chest as Cameron turned over again and slightly knocked the wind out of him. _Alright, that does it, _he thought. John reached over and slid his arm under her neck and wrapped his right arm over her torso. _It might be a vain attempt, but one way or another you are going to be still!_

What surprised John was that his plan worked, she seemed to settle down and not move much at all after that. Though the rapidly developing bruise on his chest prevented him from falling asleep, he did close his eyes for quite some time. He felt her snuggle up close to him while they both lay there on their sides in the bed. Soon though he felt her stop breathing, or rather her simulated breathing had ceased, and he opened his eyes to a peculiar sight.

Cameron was laying on her side with her hands tucked up under her face and the pillow, her eyes were wide open on him but her face showed no sign of expression. Her eyes, although were staring right at him, but didn't appear to be focused on him at all. John saw her jaw muscles clench down slightly before she seemed to snap out of her daze, a serene expression came across her face as she started breathing again.

"Morning," John said, completely worn out and having gotten little to no sleep that night.

She closed her eyes as if in bliss and let out a yawn before opening them again, "Good morning, what time is it?"

John brought his watch up and read out, "A little past six, why?"

"Angela said she would be here at six, we're supposed to be..." A knock came at the door, before the black haired women opened it and stepped inside.

"Are you two decent?" she asked, Angela's face was hidden behind a stack of papers while she entered the room.

"Why wouldn't we be?" John chuckled.

Angela muttered an, "Oh! Right..." before launching into exactly what Cameron said she would have, "You two need to get up to the briefing room. Command's on the line and they want you up there pronto."

John got up out of the bed, fully dressed minus a shirt to wear, but Cameron stayed put. He looked back at her and chuckled, "Alright come on, we gotta get moving." He tried to yank the cover off teasingly but she gripped it with a force to be reckoned with.

"Can you two wait outside?" she asked nervously. Both of them stared at her, full of curiosity before John grabbed a shirt and they stepped outside. _Sometimes I think I understand her, then she does something like this..._John sighed, _women..._

A minute or two later, Cameron came strolling out of the door fully dressed in her uniform. Not a hair was out of place, and even though she were in a resistance base full of slightly hungry and dirty humans, she achieved the look of a supermodel even without makeup.

John eyed her strangely, "We all ready to go now?"

"Yes," she said flatly, not liking to be the center of attention.

Angela walked ahead of them and pretended not to be paying attention when John asked, "What was that all about?"

"Hmm?" Cameron looked over at him with a quizzical expression as John explained.

"_Can you two wait outside?_" John did a crappy imitation of Cameron's voice, much to her annoyance.

"Modesty, John...modesty. You should look into it sometime," she teased, while Angela suppressed a smirk up ahead.

When they climbed the stairs and joined everyone else on the main floor, all of the people stopped eating their meals and looked up at the three people that had just entered the room. _Glad to see they haven't lost their hospitality,_ John thought as he resorted to his usual demeanor of not caring and pretending not to notice it, while Cameron actually appeared to be genuinely shy. He thought this was odd but continued to hold onto her hand as they walked over to the stairs to enter the briefing area.

"I take it you two haven't eaten yet right?" asked Angela, also trying to avoid the gaze of everyone in the room.

They both shook their heads before Angela walked off to grab them a granola bar and some water. Both John and Cameron continued walking towards the briefing room while Angela hurried after them with their food.

"Here you go," she called out from behind.

"Thanks," John said, while turning around to accept the food from Angela. _Mmm, chocolate chip!_

John handed Cameron her granola bar and watched her face scrunch up in a pout over being given strawberry. He chuckled to himself and offered her a trade, which she gratefully accepted. _Mental note, Cameron doesn't like strawberries._

She tore into the packet and nibbled on the edge of the granola bar while they entered the room to find everyone waiting for them. A pleasant surprise was the freshly healed Perry, who was sitting at the head of the table in Connor's former seat. He nodded at their entry and gestured towards two empty chairs, while Vasquez took up her seat beside Hendricks.

Before John's butt had touched the seat, the intercom on the table began talking, "Perry what the hell is taking so long, go and wake that brat up already!"

"The brat is awake and waiting on your ass to start," John sneered towards the speaker before adding, "_sir_."

Refusing to let Connor have the upper hand the radio replied, "Unless you would like another month in your room Connor I'd suggest you learn how to address your superiors. Now, we have received intelligence from a field operation that Skynet has a facility at Topanga Canyon. Massive amounts of Skynet activity have been seen in the area which leads us to believe this is Skynet central, or at least a backup facility to the spinal system of the machines."

"On January 1, 2014 we will be commencing with an assault on this complex, and it _will_ be brought down to the ground. If this is truly the Skynet central hub, the war may very will be over in a few short days ladies and gentlemen."

"Perry?"

"Yes sir," responded Perry.

"Your troops will be in charge of placing the detonations once we have gained access to the building. It is heavily guarded. Our scouts noticed two turrets on each directional section of the building, and there are quite a few large tanks in there as well. What exactly lies inside the place, we don't know, but the cost of winning the war is enough to pay for sending you in there."

The radio went silent long enough for Perry to close with, "Yes sir." He didn't look pleased, or even remotely disgruntled. Just like John, Perry was pissed.

Angela was the first to speak after Perry got up and left the room, "See you guys on the flip side, I'm off on watch-duty."

Hendricks called up to her as she left the room, "You better be back in the bunk by 0900!"

John and everyone else laughed while Cameron turned to him and reasserted, "Modesty..."

* * *

**Skynet Facility 4-D. Topanga Canyon, California**

**January 1, 2014**

**8:00PM**

* * *

Attack day. It was what they were all thinking about as they had gathered their gear and loaded up into the Hummer's. Each of them had shared a quiet goodbye with each other before leaving the power plant they called home. When John had entered the armory to grab his rifle, he caught Angela and Hendricks sharing a quick kiss before they tried to cover up what they had been doing. John and Cameron had their own goodbye in the back of the hummer as it pulled away from Serrano Point. He was sitting there, staring out the window minding his own business when all of a sudden he felt Cameron slide up beside him and drop him a quick peck on the cheek before she slid back over to her side of the vehicle.

The caravan was fairly small, mostly because the transfer of troops had left them with a depleting number of soldiers willing to fight. In the front Humvee was Perry, the driver Sanchez, Hendricks, and Angela. The second Humvee contained John, Cameron, Ellison, and their driver Danny Dyson. In the rear Humvee was Derek and Kyle Reese, their driver Antonio, and a demolitions expert Huey Stamp.

Up ahead was the rally point, and they could already see the firefight happening between the resistance and Skynet. What looked like two aerial HK's were circling the airspace above the plant while three tanks were out front, behind the perimeter established by the turrets.

The hummer's all ground to a halt and they exited in a haste. "Alright fall in, lets move," Perry ordered. They all fell into line and began jogging up to the temporary command position behind the resistance front line. A slight rumble off to their right caught John's attention.

"T-1 cover!," yelled John suddenly, and they all hit the dirt.

The unit rolled past them, and the debris that separated them from the unit provided them with cover which kept them out of sight from its deadly plasma cannons. It made its way up onto the pathway in front of them and began encroaching towards the command embankment before John felt the demo tech behind him get up on his knees.

"Fire in the hole," the man yelled before releasing the RPG from his shoulder. The machine barely even had time to turn around and fire before the grenade had traveled the fifty or so feet and collided with its torso. Still though, it had fired.

John turned around and saw that Stamp had been hit square in the torso by a plasma blast, a large gaping hole was all that remained of his chest as he fell over and hit the dirt.

"Connor! Grab the C-4 and follow us!" barked Perry while the team recovered from the encounter. John grabbed the pack laying next to Huey's corpse and slugged it over his shoulder.

"Good to go sir," John said. Perry nodded and they once again started making their way to the temporary base of operations.

The former city had been destroyed by Skynet, everything had been blown up or cleared away to make room for the facility laying in the heart of the town. It reminded John of Calgary but with more destruction everywhere. Buildings were collapsed down on top of themselves, or on top of others, and the streets were impassible. Any movement towards the facility would have to be made via crawling around in rubble, both to hide from the HK's and to even attempt to navigate around the war zone.

They all ducked down and entered the crawlspace under the slab of concrete that acted as a ceiling to the bunker of command. There, in the center of the room, as the only human being on the planet that John Connor would ever happily kill.

"Well look who we have here, the man himself," jested the familiar voice from the radio from inside the base camp.

"Well I'm glad to see we finally agree on something sir," John retorted before quickly falling into attention with the rest of his unit.

The sniveling man came up and put his face right in John's before exhaling a large puff of smoke, "And what would that be _Connor_?"

John kept his eyes straight and said, "We both agree that I'm a man."

The man smirked before turning around and showing them all a map of the area, "Right now, we've pretty much got all of the defenses held up tight. But right here," he pointed at a specific portion of the map, "This alleyway here is the point at which your team will be inserted Perry."

"I want you to give them as much hell as you guys can then get your asses in there, plant the explosives, and level that place so we can all go home." The man took another long drag of his cigarette, "Hopefully that's all it takes to shut this bitch down."

"Yes sir, General Bryant sir!" Perry saluted before turning to his men and ordering them to fall in behind him.

They had nearly left the rocky threshold before Bryant turned to John and sneered, "Oh and Connor, don't get cut out there. Wouldn't want that pretty little face of yours to be scarred up anymore then it already is."

John swallowed the instinct to knock out his superior and continued walking behind Cameron. They began ducking behind cover again and slowly making their way over to the choke point position before Cameron fell out of line and fell back beside John in line.

"John?" she whispered as they crawled over the remains of a smashed truck with a demolished wall laying out on top of it.

"Yea, Cam?"

They dropped back down on to the pavement and ducked under cover when the aerial HK opened fire down the path they were all walking. Bursts dug themselves down into the ground as the flying unit hovered for a moment then took off to another position in a few seconds after it appeared.

They all jumped back up and began making their way into the alleyway where Charlie company was located. It just so happened that Charlie company was about three seconds away from a full retreat of the area. Perry jumped over a large rock and came to rest in front of the leader.

"What the hell is going on here? We were told to hold this position," Perry yelled over the roar of something in the near vicinity.

"Tank, we gotta clear out of here its gonna level us!" the leader yelled before trying again to make his way past Perry, who held his ground and prevented the man from moving.

"Connor!" Perry yelled, "Sticky now!"

John reached into the bag and brought up one of the sticky bombs. It was a regular C4 charge that had been modified by John Henry. Usually when you threw them a magnetic charge in the molded plastic would make it stick to the target and explode, hence the name sticky bombs.

He ran up behind a destroyed car and lobbed the sticky at the tank as it rolled up in front of the entrance to the place. It stuck and they all waited for impact, but the turret gun on the side of the tank had a different scenario in mind. It spun around quickly and tried to fire on their position before it exploded.

The large plasma blast hurtled into the building on their right and must have hit one of the center support column because the building started to collapse. A great crackle and rumble filled the alleyway as everyone ducked for cover. John fell down into a crouched position next to the destroyed vehicle and still waited for the sticky to explode.

"Run, go, go, go! Retreat!" was all John heard before debris began raining down on him. He felt Cameron run up on his rear and grab him by the back of his jacket collar. Just in the nick of time, she jerked him out of the way and they both lay flat alongside the demolished vehicle while large chunks of mortar and brick fell directly where John had been crouched.

He looked over at her face, no more than an inch from his own and asked, "What was that you were going to say earlier?"

Cameron let the corner of her lips curl up at his question, "Stay safe and try not to do anything stupid."

John chuckled, "That's a little bit too late don't ya think?" He looked up in front of them and saw a T-500 rounding the corner. Before he could bring his rifle up and shoot it, the sticky on the side of the tank exploded, sending the torso of the beast lurching forward and crashing down on the ground. The force from the blast knocked the T-500 down on the rubble in front of it, which exposed the inner mechanisms via the collar bone area.

John brought his rifle up and fired into the exposed circuitry before the robot had a chance to reactivate. He and Cameron jumped up from their crouched positions and ran up to take cover behind the hulking mass of the tank treads. Cameron left his side for a moment before she returned with the 500's plasma rifle.

"Be careful with that thing," John said while taking aim at a turret and firing, making the thing explode into a million pieces.

"Why?" she said, looking over at him with questionable eyes.

"Continuous fire, it generates heat. Don't hold the trigger down for too long or the gun will overheat from the plasma and explode," John said quickly while firing on another T-500 from afar. He yelled over his shoulder to the group behind him still cut off by the rubble, "If you guys would like to give us a hand up here it would be greatly appreciated!"

The first to make their way up over the rubble and run up to John's position was Derek Reese. The young nineteen-year-old man was soon followed by his brother, and the rest of their squad. John felt Perry slap him on the back for a job well done.

"Excellent work John, those turrets gone yet?" Perry planted his back against the tank tread as plasma fire screamed out over his head.

John took another peak over the tank tread before snapping back down to avoid the plasma screaming towards his head, "That would be a no." His words had barely left his mouth when the plasma blasts hit the tank bottom where they were taking cover.

"I can't take it out from here," John said to Perry, "Here, Cam, move over and let me...Cam?" John's eyes searched for where his friend had been standing but she wasn't to be seen, anywhere.

John looked back over the tank tread to see something of astounding beauty, and deadly tactics all rolled into one being. Cameron had taken off at a full sprint across the demolished area between them and the turret. A collapsed wall gave her aerial access, seeing that, she ran off of it and went airborne. It looked like she had done a graceful swan dive through the air over the turret before landing on the ground next to it, rolling forward on her back to absorb the blast, and then firing on the machine with the plasma rifle, sending it permanently to the scrap yard.

His mouth, along with everyone else hung wide open in awe at what she had just done. After she had driven the first few rounds into the turret, Cameron looked around to make sure the coast was clear before beckoning them over with a smile on her face. _Damn, its like its all a game to her. Like...whoa..._

They all sprinted the twenty yard distance over to where she stood before they began making their way up and into the facility. Everyone had their guns trained on anything that even had the capability of movement when they entered the place. Perry, the second to last person inside, radioed Bryant to let him know they were inside.

The group had been expecting a lot of things from the supposed Skynet central complex, but what they found on the inside was radically different in nearly every way. What they had been expecting was loads of mechanical equipment, maybe a few computer hubs, hell even a weapons cache or something. Instead the air was stale, and damp, and it looked sort of...like a hospital, not to mention it was completely empty. _Why was Skynet defending an empty building?_ John thought.

"Stay sharp everyone," Perry said before turning to John, "Connor, start setting up the charges on anything remotely structural. We'll go and check out what this place _really_ is. Everyone meet back here in ten, if you fall behind, you _will_ be going down with the building. Understood?"

Everyone nodded, and they all took off, leaving John and Cameron alone to set the charges. It didn't take them very long, the complex had a simple layout of hallways and rooms. John was just about to open a door and place the last charge of C4 on the wall inside when the contents of the room made him puke.

Cameron came running up behind him but he held her back, she didn't need to see what was inside the room. Corpses were piled up in the corner of the room, or rather what was left of the bodies. It looked like they had been surgically tampered with, or even dissected. Flies were swarming all over the room before John turned his attention from them to a person paying on the surgical table, and his heartbeat immediately raised by fifty beats-per-minute.

That face, that body structure, that visage... There was no doubt about it, this was uncle Bob, or at least the model of uncle Bob. The machines voice came into his mind as his eyes hovered over the body, _"Cyberdyne systems, model 101."_ The words one-oh-one kept repeating themselves in his brain while he snapped around to find a puzzled Cameron staring back at him.

"We gotta go, now!" John took her hand and ran with her down the hall while shouting to Perry on his radio, "Perry this is Connor, we leave now! We leave now! Repeat, leave in one minute."

"Copy," came the hasty reply as they rounded the corner of the hallway and kept on running.

All of a sudden the facilities lights went out, plunging the men and women into darkness. Cameron surprisingly couldn't see either, because she searched in the darkness for John and grabbed his jacket frantically when she touched it. John switched the flashlight mounted along the barrel of his weapon into the on position as they continued towards the exit.

They rounded another corner and found the group up ahead of them, already halfway out of the doors. "Connor, hit it now," he heard Perry yell before the man ducked out of the door.

John fumbled with the detonator before hitting the button right when they cleared the doorway. The explosions began rattling off behind them one after the other while they ran as fast as they could to catch up with Perry and the others ahead of them. Just as they reached the cover point and ducked down, the main charge went off and the building began collapsing down on itself. John didn't have time to check and see if the entire building had collapsed because an aerial HK had turned in an extremely tight semi-circle and began making its way over to them.

He grabbed the RPG from his shoulder and loaded it into the chamber before taking careful aim, "Fire in the hole, guys," he yelled as his finger pressed the trigger. A quick 'whosh' of smoke filled the area as the grenade flew off and collided with the right engine of the machine. It lost its course and flew over their heads, dangerously low to the ground, and slammed into the front of the collapsing facility.

John was about to tell everyone to run when he changed his mind and told them all to duck down. The group had been spread out from trying to find adequate cover, and half of them were struck immediately by plasma fire from the second aerial HK. Angela screamed out as Hendricks and the others ceased to exist, and John had to hold her back to keep her from running over to their position.

Cameron raised her plasma rifle and destroyed the rear fan-tail of the aircraft, sending it dropping through the sky like a heavy rock, crashing down onto the outcrop behind them. John wanted to do like Angela, and mourn for their lost friends, but he heard Perry order the, "Move out," and he knew he couldn't.

John didn't look back to see who all had made it and was running with him, he glanced over at Cameron, gave her a nod, and they both dragged Angela from the battlefield and back towards the operational command base. In front of them was Perry, laying down any cover fire they needed. Through all of their heavy breathing and grunts as they ran, John kept his ears straining for any sounds of people running up behind them before he heard two pairs of footsteps. _Thank God two of them made it!_

They made it up to the command base and collapsed onto the ground as Bryant came outside to congratulate them. "Looks like you took quite a beating out there, Perry."

John finally looked around while he was gasping for air and saw who all had survived the attack from the HK. To his left was Perry, heaving for breath harder then John was. On his right was Vasquez and Cameron, the two pairs of footsteps behind them belonged to Derek and Kyle. _Damn,_ John thought. _Ellison, Antonio, Sanchez, Hendricks, and Danny, all...dead. Just like that..._

Bryant looked over at Perry and scoffed, "So, I can tell from the continued fighting from the machines that the place wasn't Skynet central. What was in that place, Perry?"

John looked over to Perry, who shook his head and muttered, "I don't know sir. Didn't see anything out of the ordinary."

Before Bryant could interject again, John cut him off, "It was a research facility for development of an..."

"Connor, when I want to hear the rantings and ravings of a lunatic, rest assured that you are number one on my list. But I was talking to Colonel Perry here, not you _Corporal._"

John bared his teeth before clenching his jaw shut in disgust of the man. His hand began shaking in anger as the man continued to ask Perry, who already told him he didn't know, what was inside the facility.

After the interrogation clearly was headed nowhere, Bryant dismissed them from his company and told them to return to Serrano Point. "Today was a good victory," he had said.

_Victory?_ John's conscious mocked the General, _A victory isn't sending people into a place with no knowledge of it, and accomplishing absolutely nothing in the process you idiot! _That last bit wasn't true though, and John knew that. Skynet had been working on, or had already built a T-800 Model 101 Terminator inside that place. The fact that they had leveled it down on top of the thing made their climb into the hummer a little more joyful before they headed off into the distance with the other resistance members in the area.

The sounds of ammunition and yelling soon faded from the battlefield. Units of Skynet ground machines marched off into the distance to destroy their targets, while smoke and fires slowly rose into the sky. After one long night, the sun rose to wash over the landscape with its dreary light that pierced through the thick clouds that blanketed the skies.

It began raining shortly afterward, though it did not last very long. The fire from the Skynet facility had just been extinguished when a figure crept out of a crawlspace in the rubble. His body showed no signs of fatigue, or damage as he came into the open air. The man's lungs took in a deep breath of air while he looked up at the sky in amazement.

A sharp ping from inside his head though drew his attention back down to the ground. His hands flew up to his temples and he began crying out in pain as if something were experiencing the worst migraine in the history of mankind. After the pain reached a choking point the man collapsed down onto the ground, seemingly unconscious.

He lay there for the next few hours before a group of refugee's stumbled upon him. They gathered around him and began mumbling to themselves as he woke up. A voice in the back of his head kept repeating itself over and over, "Find John Connor. Kill him immediately."

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

To Be Continued...


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17: The Orders Of Command**

* * *

_ We had done command's bidding, and paid the price for it heavily._

_ Though we all loathed Bryant, each for our own reasons, it wasn't like we could come out and just out the guy from command._

_ In some sheer stroke of brilliance, he had won the trust of most of the military commanders from USA. To take him down from his throne now would be futile, they would put him right back on it in a heartbeat._

_ But how do you go about getting rid of the one person you want to get rid of and making everyone else turn against him too?_

* * *

**USA Resistance Base, Serrano Point**

**January 2, 2014**

**4:17AM**

* * *

The hummer rolled into the parking lot which took up part of the basement of Serrano Point. Outside of the vehicle were a few hundred people, looking to catch a glimpse of the returning fighters. They all seemed rife with anticipation as the vehicle ground to a halt in its customary area and the motor was killed. Many of the people were eager to run forward and greet the fighters but they were in for a shock when the doors opened.

The first out of the hummer was Perry, followed by a red-eyed Vasquez, then came the Reese brothers, last to leave were finally John and Cameron. All of them looked worn out from their mission, and none of them were expecting a crowd upon their return.

A few of the members of the crowd cried out for Ellison, but he failed to step out of the hummer. The Islamic woman who always wore her hijab stepped forward slowly and approached John. "Tell me it is not true. That Mr. Ellison has not fallen," her voice was quivering as she spoke.

John looked up to her tear filled eyes and solemnly nodded his head. He could see the hope leave her features before her head lowered to the ground and she turned to walk away. After she had took a few steps, she stopped and turned back to him.

"Thank you," she muttered.

"For what?" John asked curiously.

"For being honest. Mr. Ellison was right about you, you are a good man," the woman said, before turning and walking back to the throng of people. She delivered the news to the prayer group and a sudden exclamation of tears filled the room.

Perry came up to John as she left and gave a big sigh, "They all will be pretty shook up that he didn't make it. Life carries on I guess, right?" Perry's voice was clear and understandable but his face and eyes were a thousand miles away from the events happening in front of him.

John repeated his words, "Life goes on."

The man turned and faced John before giving a slight smile, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Well I'm off. Make sure everyone clears this place and third watch takes their duty?"

John nodded, and Perry left for his quarters.

Cameron stepped up beside John, "Delta team is already on duty. I saw the soldiers on the exterior when we rolled in."

John looked over at her, "I know. He...just has a lot on his mind right now.

The crowd quickly dispersed after Perry left, most of them returned to their bunks, a few of them went up to the ground floor to socialize after the lack of sleep. Angela came over beside John and Cameron, her face was still red and puffy from mourning William on the ride home.

Cameron saw fit to ease her pain a little bit, "He was a good man." She let a comforting smile form on her face to let Angela know everything would be okay.

Vasquez let out a teary chuckle and rolled her eyes, "He was a fucking idiot." She took another short breath and tried to hold back a few more tears before laughing again, "But _God_ he had a great ass."

John watched the two women giggle at one another before he chimed in, "Think you two can find your bunks? I need to make a stop by the radio room." They both nodded and took off towards the sleeping area, giggling and suppressing tears as they walked.

The hallways of the basement floor had nearly been deserted with people as John navigated them and climbed the stairway to the ground level. Most of the few people that were on that level ignored their former General as he climbed the staircase to the control room. Once inside he was surprised to see what appeared to be a ten year old girl sitting at the terminal where Danny normally was.

He didn't know her on a first name basis, but she seemed familiar to someone he had met before, "Jesse, right?"

"Yes sir," she said.

"John Connor," he introduced himself before asking, "Think you can patch me into the worldwide frequency?"

"Sure, no problem mate," Jesse sat up in her seat and began flipping on switches on the control panel before giving him the thumbs up. "You want me to step outside sir?"

John shook his head, "No, you'll hear it one way or another. Might as well be from me."

His fingers pressed down the receiver on the microphone, "Things are beginning to change. This isn't the war that I thought we were fighting. I came into it prepared for what we had to handle, but Skynet's forces are continuing to rapidly improve themselves."

John took a breath before continuing, "There was an attack yesterday on a supposed Skynet Central complex. Command would like you all to think it was a success, and that all those who fought and died did so bravely. War isn't about being brave, and charging into an area head first, and thinking later."

"War is about knowing your enemy, understanding its weaknesses, and then exploiting them until it can no longer function. The attack yesterday yielded information that command does not want you to know, but I think we all need to be aware of the dangers discovered yesterday."

He took another breath before gripping the microphone again, "We found an experiment chamber, where Skynet has been dissecting humans. People in command refuse to admit its existence, but I'm here to tell you it exists, and its very real. Soon, just how soon I can't say...Skynet will begin building a machine that mimics a humans appearance flawlessly. That is why I ask any of you out there, seek out any of these facilities and destroy them. Get any prisoners out of there, but level the place when you leave. We can't afford to have these machines come online."

John gripped the microphone a little tighter, knowing that Bryant was listening to him, "This is John Connor. Stay safe, stay alive, give them hell."

He handed the microphone to Jesse before he turned to leave. She called out to him from her computer terminal, "Sir?"

"Yes, Jesse?" John was still facing the door, but stopped walking to answer anything she had to ask.

"You're talking about the tin can that stays with you aren't you sir?" the girls Australian accent floated up to his ears.

"No," John replied, "Cameron, minus her chip, is a complete product of John Henry now. She has about as much Skynet in her as your or I do." John turned around to face Jesse before adding, "And her name is Cameron, and nothing else on top of it or a substitution. Understood?"

"Yes sir," Jesse responded with a smile.

"How did someone so young get a job in the control room?" John asked, genuinely curious now.

Her face scrunched in confusion before she realized what he meant, "Oh, get it all the time mate. I look a lot younger then I am. I'm fifteen sir."

John raised both his eyebrows, _she certainly does look ten, not fifteen. _"That's still kind of young to be in charge of communications for a major resistance facility isn't it?"

Jesse returned his teasing tone back at him, "And being twenty-nine and wanting to lead humanity into a war against machines is any different?"

"I'm not twenty-nine...I'll be twenty-one this February," John said.

"Thought you were born in 1985?" Jesse asked.

"I was...it's complicated," John replied nervously, hoping she would leave it at that.

"Classified information eh? No worries mate," Jesse giggled before propping her feet up on the desk and flashing him a pearly white smile.

John laughed along with her for a moment before grabbing the door handle and giving it a turn, "Hey Flores," her head cocked up in his direction, "watch your back. Command isn't going to like it that you helped me out."

"Command and go fuck themselves as far as I'm concerned sir," she retorted with a scoff.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," John smirked before he stepped through the threshold and closed the door behind him.

John walked back to his room and paused when he opened the door. Cameron was in the middle of one of her dancing routines, and even though there was no music she continued to sway around the room gracefully. Without an ounce of control, he stood there and watched her dance for what seemed like forever. Every time she did a twirl or turned and faced him her eyes were closed, but her face exuded happiness.

Cameron finally opened her eyes during the dance though, and immediately stopped when she saw John watching her. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were there." Her hands straightened out the uniform she was wearing before she sat down on the bed.

"It's okay, I didn't mind watching," John said. He uncrossed his arms, closed the door, and sat down on the bed beside her.

"It is your room too, John. If you want to use it for sleeping, then I shouldn't stand in the way," she looked up to him as if she should be sorry for something.

He sighed and began taking off his boots, "Are you going to sleep, or are you going to dance some more?" John's voice was calm and comforting as he spoke to her, if she wanted to dance he saw no need to tell her not to.

"I was only dancing to keep my mind off of the battle earlier tonight. I don't like thinking about things like that," Cameron said peacefully. "Now you are here though, my mind will be occupied."

"Uh huh," John groaned, "and I take it that you don't want to talk about rushing into enemy lines by yourself and nearly getting killed?"

A smile perked up one side of her mouth, "No."

"Good, then sleep it is then," John let out a yawn before falling back onto the pillow. He let his muscles relax for the first time since they had left for the mission they had just returned from.

Cameron laid down next to him and draped her arm over his chest, her feet playing with his under the sheet before he felt her relax and start to go to sleep. "Hey," John shook her shoulder a little to wake her up for a brief moment, "No tossing and turning tonight, okay?" His words fell on deaf ears as Cameron was already fast asleep. _Great,_ John thought, _just...great._

By mid-day they were both forced awake by Angela's rapid knocking on the door, "Connor! Hey, Connor. Perry needs us in the briefing room immediately! Looks like we already have a new assignment."

They both dressed as quickly as they could, which didn't take long considering they both fell asleep in their uniforms, and hurried out the door with Angela. People moved out of their way as they practically jogged down the hallways and ran up the stairs to get to the strategy room. As they rounded the corner and came up outside the door, he could hear Bryant's angry voice filling the room from the hallway.

"Get that bastard in there pronto! He needs to do some explaining for what he's done!"

John winked at Cameron and everyone else in the room before he said, "Once again, _sir,_ we are all waiting on you."

"Connor! What the hell were you thinking sending out that broadcast this morning? We've gotten messages from half of Europe saying that they are abandoning our orders and _hunting down your damn dissection facilities!_"

"Sir I gave no orders, nor pretended to be under the guise of a General. I simply sent out a notice that they _may_ want to look into what we saw in Topanga Canyon. Whether they took my advice or not was totally up to them," John replied with a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Connor if you pull anything like this again, you're gone. You hear me? GONE!"

The room fell silent for a few moments while they all suppressed a few laughs, "We need your group to carry out another demolition Perry. North of San Francisco, there are reports of a massive work camp there. The machines are building something there, and its massive. We want production of it stopped before Skynet can get it up and running. I don't care how you do it, just get it done."

Perry stood and leaned over the table, placing both hands on the table with a loud thud, "_Sir!_ We've only just recounted from yesterday's attack. Our forces are down drastically after the past few days, and you want us to carry out another mission on an unknown facility with untold forces inside it?"

"I understand your trepidation, Perry. But we have operations being carried out in the area along with yours. We can't afford to send in any reinforcements to aid you."

"SIR! You want us to go in there_ alone?_ It's suicide!" Perry's fists were on the edge of plunging through the wood now.

"You have your orders, Perry. Bryant out."

"Bastards lost his mind," Angela seethed.

Perry didn't respond, neither did anyone else; it was what they were all thinking. The man turned and stormed out of the room, leaving everyone debating whether to follow him or not now that the meeting was obviously over. John finally inhaled the last bit of a granola bar and stood up to leave.

"I guess that's all she wrote, see you guys tomorrow at the loading area," and with that he turned and left the room. _If we are going into another hell hole tomorrow, I'm at least getting a full rotation of sleep beforehand._

He had just taken his boots and shirt off when Cameron entered the room. She was eating an apple which she kept turning over in her hands, feeling the texture as much as possible before taking another bite. John watched her curiously before plopping back down on the bed and staring up at the ceiling.

"You think that one day we will win the war?" he asked her, never taking his eyes off of the ceiling.

"I believe its possible, but the machines are making if difficult to predict how they work. I think that if you were to return to Command, then the war would begin turning in our favor," Cameron took another bite of the apple after she spoke and sat down at the small table in front of the bed.

"Yea?" John turned his head and see's Cameron has frozen up again. Everything on her face is wiped completely clean. Her fingers are still wrapped around whats left of the apple, but they aren't twitching, her whole body is just...frozen.

"Cam?...Cameron?" John's voice seemed to break her out of her daze because she turned her head and replied to him.

"Yes John," something was off about her voice. It was muddled and sounded like it was being distorted by an audio program of some sort.

"Is that _you_ in there?" He sat up on the bed and turned his whole body to face her now.

"I've...suffered damage...Sector 14-11-B...quadrant L...It needs repair, John," Her voice continued sounded like it was distorted until her body relaxed and she said, "Did you say something, John?" When her body relaxed it seemed as if her voice went back to normal along with everything else, but he knew something was off.

_She said she has damage to her chip. How am I supposed to remove it without freaking her the hell out?_ John looked over her slowly before replying, "No, I asked you if you were sleepy...I guess."

Cameron set the apple down on the table and walked over to the bed, laying down next to him carefully. "I meant to tell you, at noon everyone is having a prayer memorial for the people who died in the attack on the first. I thought you might like to go."

John cocked his head in her direction, "Yea, Angie would need some company. She took it pretty hard."

"Then go to sleep, I'll wake you up at noon," she smiled warmly at him before she got back up and walked over to the table again.

* * *

John and Cameron stepped outside the plant and onto the beach. The ocean was calm today, as well as everything else. Not even a breeze was blowing, and it was always breezy around the ocean. Not today though, it was as if Earth herself was telling them it was the proper time to mourn.

A gathering of a hundred people or so were out front, huddled in a semi-circle around the woman who always wore the hijab. It just then occurred to John that she had always been friendly whenever he approached her, yet he never asked what her names was. If he had a chance today, he would certainly ask her.

It didn't take him long to recognize a familiar face standing off by her own from the crowd. Angela was a little bit closer to the ocean then everyone else. She was still within earshot of the prayers being given for the lost, but her eyes were on the horizon of the ocean as if looking for a long lost vessel. They made their was over to her quietly, trying not to disturb the main group.

"Hey guys," she said before they had even walked within ten feet of her back. "Thanks for coming."

"Anytime," said Cameron, "Is there anything you need?" Her eyes lifted to Angela's face trying to find some iota of peace or understanding but the woman's puffy red eyes showed that she hadn't came to terms with Hendrick's passing.

"Nah," she chuckled to herself, "I'm alright." Vasquez turned her face to meet theirs, "How about you guys? I know Danny and Ellison were close friends."

"I don't want to sound off-putting Angie, but I'm kind of used to people dying around me. I still mourn their loss at times, but after more then a decade of people turning up dead around you, you start to handle it a little differently then everyone else. It becomes almost...second nature," John let the words travel out of his mouth as he too turned and looked at the ocean. The massive expanse of water bringing him a small ounce of peace during the gathering.

John heard the crunch of sand coming up on his rear and turned to face the newcomer, Major Perry, "Hello sir."

The man smiled at John understandingly, "Please, call me Justin." He waited a few moments before continuing, "Listen John...uh...Delta team didn't come in for relief of watch-duty. Think you can go out there and remind them its time to come home?"

John nodded before turning to Cameron, "Think you two can stay here and not get into trouble?"

Cameron flashed him a 'don't push me' face before saying, "What do you think we're going to do? Do a strip-tease at a wake?"

John and Perry both snickered as they turned and went back to the base before picking up their weapons. They were just about to leave the base and go find Delta team when Martin Bedell and his wife rounded the corner, the now five-month-old baby was held tenderly by her mother.

"Hey guys, you going out on patrol of something?" Martin asked before urging his wife out to join the prayer group.

Perry and John watched her walk away before turning and telling him, "Delta team never showed up at the end of their shift. We're headed out to make sure they are still alive."

"Well hell, sounds like fun," Bedell's face brightened up, "Anything's better then diaper duty...without the diapers." He laughed as he walked past the two men and grabbed a rifle from the table. "So...oorah?"

They all three laughed before turning and heading away from the plant and towards Delta teams last known position, "Oorah!"

* * *

**Outside Serrano Point, California**

**January 4, 2014**

**11:54AM**

* * *

Perry, John, and Martin all strafed through the rubble and debris that covered the small area of Avila Beach. So far they hadn't found anything worthy of note, but Delta team should have been in this area by now, in fact they were about three hours behind schedule of being in this area. _Where the hell are these guys?_

They were about a mile out from the facility when they caught the trail of Delta team, or what was left of Delta team. A trail of blood lay splattered on the ground, dripping over various bricks and mounts of concrete. John clicked his teeth to let them know something was up and everyone immediately halted, then ducked for cover.

John gave the appropriate hand signals and they all slowly followed the trail to the bodies of the Delta team members. The three of them lay slain in a group together, plasma burns scorched through their torso's. Perry grabbed the radio on his shoulder and hissed into it while Bedell and Connor surveyed the perimeter.

"Perry to base! Perry to base! Skynet activity within firing distance, get everyone inside and seal the entrances. We might be expecting company," he whispered into the radio before letting it go and taking up his rifle again.

Before Perry could ask them if they had found anything, John heard the clanks of the metal walking around nearby. He left his position and began hunting the predator in the distance. Both Bedell and Perry looked at each other, slightly confused by John's tactics when they heard firing up ahead. They both tore out from their cover to assist John, but when they rounded the corner they found him leaning over the remains of the machine, digging something out of its brain.

"Skynet wants to send us Terminators, fine. I'll start working on reprogramming them. Command be damned, I'm tired of loosing soldiers out there in the battlefield," John sniffed the cold air before turning back to the two men standing in front of him, "We all good to go?"

They both threw him a look of concern but nodded in approval, "Good, lets haul ass back to base before they lock us out. My ass is freezing."

The men found three women waiting for them when they returned; Angela, Cameron, and Martin's wife. Each of them looked concerned for the soldiers jogging towards the base, and a look of relief soon eclipsed their anxiety ridden faces. The men continued running until they were safely inside the base before the doors were closed behind them.

"Connor, you get to work on that chip. Bedell, you get everyone down to the basement levels and then come outside to man the turrets with me and Alpha squad," Perry ordered before climbing up one of the catwalks that lead to the turrets stationed on the outside perimeter of the building.

Martin turned and started shouting towards the group of people in the main hall, "Alright everyone, you heard the man, downstairs now! Don't look at me like that, come on lets get moving! I don't have all day!"

The group of people started walking across the large gathering space towards the staircase that lead to the basement while Cameron and Angela remained at their place near John. "What did he say about a chip," asked Angela.

John fished the chip out of his pockets and brought it up into their view, "Snatched it off the 500 that wasted Delta team. Figured if I can reprogram it, we could use it against Skynet."

"Just like..." Angela started to finish the sentence with 'Cameron' before John shot her a look of pure daggers if she mentioned the word.

"Well lets see what we can do," Cameron said, breaking the tension between the two.

"Well I don't even know if Dyson had the equipment to do it with, I'll have to go and get it from his old room in the radio area," said John, while scratching his head.

The hours rolled on as John tried to hook up all of Dyson's equipment and then hack into the chip without activating it. Back when he tried this with Vick's chip, Skynet wasn't active. When Vick received too much power, his chip had started booting up his higher level functions, John couldn't allow that now though. Skynet was online, and controlled all but one satellite in space. All it would take was one second of good streaming from the 500 to let Skynet know exactly who had disabled it.

Luckily the unit had been sent out alone though, Perry had returned after three hours of scanning the perimeter of the base and let them know that Skynet hadn't sent in any more forces. Another two hours jumped by in frustration and John took a break, and headed to his room with Cameron.

"Ugh," John mumbled as he flopped down on the bed, "code this and code that. Why can't Skynet just make its programming easy?"

Cameron looked at him for a moment before blurting out, "Because it would make the machines it controls vulnerable."

John quirked an eyebrow up at her from the bed, "It was a rhetorical question, Cam." He laughed as his head settled back down on the pillow.

"_It was a rhetorical question,_" she mocked in a girly version of his voice before laying back down with him. Her hands were roaming over his jacket while his mind was a thousand miles away, still trying to think of a way to break the complex programming in the chip. Vick's had been no problem, but then again Cameron had been 100% functional and helped him through the process.

"John. Do you miss Sarah?" Her voice penetrated his thoughts and caused him to look over at Cameron.

He thought hard for a moment, mostly about why she would be asking that question. "Of course I do," he finally said.

"I remembered that yesterday, during the battle. When we were running away from the blast from the HK towards the command post, you had the same look in your eyes as when you visited Sarah. I thought you might have been depressed," Cameron spoke softly, not knowing if she was upsetting him further or not.

"I was angry...and sad I guess. I don't like loosing people out in the field, nobody does..._That's it!_" John bolted up from the bed and made his way over to the door, "Loose the extra firewall, God how could I have not seen that before."

He left Cameron alone in the room, looking confused about what had just happened before she slammed her her down in the pillow and inhaled John's scent that lingered there, "Ugh."

John had finally done it, he accessed the visual records and database of the T-500 CPU. The visual records were pretty much a bust, most of them only gave him the location of where the facility was, which John made a mental note to destroy later on in the future, and the slaughter of Delta team. The database however was much more interesting because it contained the mission protocol for which the machine had been traveling so close to Serrano Point for in the first place: Terminate John Connor.

He felt Cameron walk up behind him and drape the blanket she held around his chest while she leaned down and looked over his shoulders, "Tough cracking session?"

"Take a look at this and tell me what you think," he said sarcastically, though he didn't mean for it to come out that way.

Cameron's eyes studied the text on the laptop screen before whispering in John's ear, "John, you know Skynet has been out to get you since you've been a small child. Why does it surprise you that there is a kill order out for you now?"

He paused for a moment before answering, "Because I was hoping to remain sort of anonymous through this whole thing. Without having a big _freaking_ target on my head the entire time."

Perry came walking in the room just as Cameron crooked her neck and plucked a kiss on the left side of his neck. John heard the man and tried to get up, but Cameron was having none of it, she held him down in the chair firmly while her lips remained sealed on his jugular.

Perry cleared his throat and spoke, "Uh...we're having a small dinner together before the operation." He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder, "Thought you two might like to join us before we peel out of here."

"Wait what? What time is it?" John asked incredulously.

Both Cameron and Perry looked at John as if he were slightly starting to loose his mind. Perry finally said, "It's 0800 Connor. The fifth, the operation is starting in an hour, so like I said if you want a meal, now's your chance."

John meet with everyone one final time before the mission began. They all joked and enjoyed each others company well as they ate the beef stew from the MRE packages. Though they all had trouble finding something jovial to say that didn't involve their fallen comrades or the war, they all came up with a funny story, except for Cameron. Even though Cameron had the biggest laugh of the night when she described how she found apples to be quite enjoyable, she didn't understand what made this so funny to everyone else.

Before long though their smiles and jovial tones subsided and were taken over by stern expressions, and rousing speeches of how they were all going to make it home this time. Bedell passed out the M16 rifles to the group as they all lined up at the armory. John turned to Cameron and and prevents her from grabbing a rifle when it is handed in her direction.

"I want you on sniper duty, something tells me your a damn good shot. I think it'd be best if you gave us cover from above on this one," John said quickly.

Cameron looked hurt that she wouldn't be down in the fight with them, "You're just making up an excuse to get me out of the thick of the battle."

"That I am," John smirked, "Now grab the M-2."

Even though someone of Cameron's size should have been burdened with something as heavy as the M-2, she carried it as if it were a stack of paper. _Strange_, John thought, _she thinks she's human but has no idea she has the strength of Superman. _The hummer was finally loaded down with equipment and they all took off toward the facility on the San Francisco border.

* * *

**Skynet Facility – San Francisco Border**

**January 5, 2014**

**2:13AM**

* * *

It had taken over five hours but they had finally arrived at the Skynet factory. Unlike the other they were at previously, this one looked to have no guard outside, though John determined that could be a trap to lure them in. They all exercised caution as they exited the hummer and started trekking towards the place on foot.

It was a massive complex though, and a rather strange looking one at that. Instead of being a reused warehouse or automotive depot like most Skynet factories, this facility looked completely brand new. The metal of the exterior gleamed in the light from the moon and stars. Its shape was also an odd thing to comprehend, it looked like a half built pyramid. The corners of the building rose up from the ground a good forty or fifty feet, slightly careening inwards, before they all leveled off to a flat roof.

"Cameron," Perry ordered, "Take up position on the roof of that McDonald's over there. It should give you a wide field of view while we get this done."

John gave her a comforting squeeze of the hand before she began, nearly skipping, over to the place Perry had ordered her to go. His eyes snapped back into line as everyone armed their rifles and switched the safeties from on to off. The clicks barely made a noise in the desolate landscape as they began silently creeping closer to the place.

The group had barely made up half the distance to the plant when the first few waves of plasma fire began firing out to their position, _Damn...turrets._ "Take cover!" John and Perry yelled simultaneously, and everyone hit the dirt.

Purple plasma screamed over their heads and struck the west facing wall of the McDonald's where Cameron was crouched above. John's head snapped around and he watched as the roof slowly collapsed down on the building. A large cloud of dust and ash rose up into the night sky while John was tempted to run over and check on her.

Angela must have been reading his mind because she pinned him down with a grip that would have made Cameron jealous, "John...ugh...she can take care of herself." She had a hard time of trying to hold him down and keep talking.

John saw the determination on her face and took two grenades out of his pack, "Perry! I'm gonna lay down a distraction. You guys evac out of here while they focus on me."

Perry was about to protest before John started running wildly in a zig-zag pattern to the South, "Move out!" his voice barked as they all began running in the opposite direction of John, back to the hummer.

John lobbed the grenades into the air and they erupted with a flash of white light, flash-bang grenades. They weren't much to the machines, but it might give him enough time to disorient their tracking systems and let the others escape. The grenade flash quieted back down as the turret still moved around while trying to track John, _good...it worked._

He ducked down into an abandoned car while the turret came back online fully. It began doing massive sweeps again as he slowly climbed around the back of the car and lobbed the other grenade in its direction. Once again it landed about ten feet from the turret and directly in front of its optical sensors. When it exploded the machine lowered down to the ground before an RPG screamed in and disabled it for good.

John turned to see who had fired the shot but had to duck down again immediately because of the rows of T-500's now exiting the front entrance of the facility. He snapped at the radio on his shoulder, "Perry! Perry, it's a factory! They are building 500's in there. Fall back now! Repeat fall back and get the hell out of here now!"

He heard heavy footsteps behind him and turned to see Cameron. John lowered his rifle quickly and jumped to his feet, "We have to get out of here now, retreat is in order."

Cameron's head nodded solemnly before they both turned and began running at full sprint towards the hummer direction. He was running so fast that his legs started to go numb from the pressure of the blood pumping through them, "Come on, Cam! We gotta make it."

"John watch out!" Her voice cut through the air like a knife as she knocked him down to the ground. John slid forward, his face and hands eating up the ground up asphalt and rocks as a naked foot stepped right in front of his face.

"Hey, over here!" Cameron shouted, and raised the M-2 to firing position at the man standing in front of John. She fired squarely into his chest, blowing a hole the size of a small baseball straight through it and he fell over dead. "John get up and run now! RUN!"

He looked up at her curiously before turning his head back to the man she had shot, the man from the facility on the table. _Oh shit..._ "Come on, Cam!" John jumped to his feet and peeled out as the fingers on the mans body slowly twitched back to life.

His head turned up towards the night sky as the electronic chip embedded in his cerebellum delivered another jolt of electricity throughout his brain, causing it to jump start the dead body. The walking corpse slowly rose as John turned around and saw it begin walking towards them at a stumbling pace.

_What the hells is Skynet doing? Creating zombies?_ John couldn't comprehend what on Earth Skynet had been doing to the man before it hit him full force in the guy. _He's a prototype...Skynet must be doing research into infiltrators already, and this guy is the stepping stone._ He looked over his shoulder again at the man who was still walking towards them with the slow pace of a zombie. John turned and fired out of mercy hitting the man square between the eyes, destroying his brain and the chip from Skynet in one shot.

They both made it back to the hummer right when Bedell had cranked it. Derek and Kyle were yelling at them to hurry up through the window as an aerial HK from nearby began firing up its engines and hovering above the ground. John and Cameron jumped inside the vehicle right when Bedell stomped on the gas, "GO!"

"Ow," Cameron said and she clutched her hand. John's attention lay on the HK outside, now rising higher and higher into the sky.

"Martin, did you pack the undercarriage with snow?" John asked as his eyes lay on the HK in the air. It was now about a hundred or so feet up into the air and had ceased its ascent. Now it began turning in mid-air towards the escaping hummer about a half mile away.

"Yea, why?" came Bedell's worried voice from the drivers seat. _Why in the hell is he worried about snow? If that thing starts its approach we are all doomed!_

"Pull under that interstate over there and shut the engine off, everyone duck down in the seats," John ordered, and Bedell did as he asked.

The roar of the HK grew louder and louder as it followed the dust trail of the hummer to the interstate. Luckily the vehicle had rolled up to an area where a few cars remained undamaged from the effects of the blasts, and it helped them to blend in. The snow would aid in throwing off the thermal sensors, all they had to do was shut up and keep still. The machine hovered in the area for a few minutes before banking and gliding off in the distance.

They all sat up in their seats and breathed a sigh of relief while Cameron kept clutching her hand. "Here let me see," John said as she shut her eyes and grimaced in pain again.

He looked down at her hand before looking back up at her face. _She...hurts? _John snapped out of his daze and quickly looked back at her hand and saw a large piece of skin missing, nearly the entire top of her hand, as well as a small bit above her wrist was gone. Looking closer, he could see the metal actuators and pistons below moving back and forth as she gripped his hand.

John tore off a piece of fabric in the back of the hummer and told her to keep pressure on it to stop the bleeding, though truth be told he was more concerned of what would happened if she saw a large piece of what should have been human bone turn out to be coltan-titanium alloy.

"I'm going to kill Bryant," Perry seethed in the front passenger seat, drawing everyone's attention up to him. The man was gritting his teeth together and looked as if were about to punch the dashboard completely off of the interior of the vehicle.

"Sir?" asked Angela, eager to carry out the assassination order against their supposed _General_.

"_Building something big there..._Sure they are, a fucking army. And he sent us in there knowing that, he wanted us dead..." Perry's voice angered everyone in the vehicle as Martin cranked it and started the long five hour journey back to Serrano Point.

* * *

*This story has been updated: 6-8-2012*

This is the last of the revisions taking place. The new chapter should be up tomorrow :)

To Be Continued...


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18: Depravity**

* * *

_ Change..._

_ Humanity both embraces it and shuns the very thought of it._

_ We are habitual creatures, and once we are stuck in a routine, we hate to let go of it._

_ Just look at the way we fought wars in the past. There used to be a dignified approach of forces on the battlefield._

_ As times progressed and technology began improving the way we killed each other, we started evolving in to stealth and guerrilla warfare._

_ World War 2, saw the most death in any given recorded war, or at least to my knowledge. And it was all because of refusal to change tactics when engaging the enemy._

_ The first thing I planned to do when we got back to the base, initiate a big...fucking...change..._

* * *

**Avila Beach, California**

**January 5, 2014**

**7:43AM**

* * *

There was a time when pulling into Avila Beach when John Connor would have let his spirits rise to their near peak intensity. The sight of the nuclear power plant was a reminder to him that they had spent nearly an entire year thwarting Skynet's plans to overthrow the facility and use it against them. Serrano Point was a place for humans to be, not for machines and in the previous year it had served that purpose well. The small town around the plant now housed small groups of survivors during the day, though they mostly stayed huddled together in the buildings with a fire to keep them warm.

John looked out at the world in front of him and saw a reminder of what he was fighting for. There were no people scurrying through holes in the debris and rubble here, there were no machines plowing through the ranks of the resistance in an effort to get to him, there was only the soft hum of life continuing on. But, then again, for a reminder of what the world truly was, John only needed to look beyond the borders of the quiet community to see the havoc Skynet was reeking the Earth with. The Western hemisphere was large, as well as parts of the Eastern hemisphere, but major places of living had been eradicated to nothingness. John Henry had told him an estimated sixty to seventy percent of the Earth was now the debris field of nuclear weapons.

All Skynet had to do was practically pick a target and the former military defense system would destroy anything it wanted to. Bryant and his military squadrons couldn't hold off Skynet's onslaught, especially now that it had developed the plasma weapons about six months back. John's unit, the 132nd, had barely destroyed the facility five days back, and they lost half their men in that mission. A blockhead like Bryant would get everyone killed if he wasn't careful, which John (as well as Perry), believed was the purposed of the previous nights mission.

So as John and everyone else in the hummer rolled into the small town, needless to say their spirits were rather low. The mission they were returning from had been a bust. Perry suspected the General of the resistance sending them out to die, but John still had his doubts that the man was truly _that_ insane. Bryant might resent John for claiming to be the rightful leader of mankind but he didn't think the man was stupid enough to try and assassinate him by proxy. Then again, the man showed a resounding hatred for anything associated with the name 'John Connor'.

Cameron had been sitting, or rather laying, next to him the entire time, with her right hand wrapped up in the cloth to hide the damage from her. John had made a mental note that she needed to start eating as much protein and carbohydrates as possible. After the three hour of the five hour long drive she had fallen asleep, with her head resting on John's lap. For now, nothing was bothering her and Cameron's face was as peaceful as ever. Thankfully, she hadn't started tossing and turning in the seat between Angela and John...yet.

John thought on whether to wake her up yet or to wait until they had arrived at the base. He raised his hand up to his right cheek and rubbed it in contemplation, the stubble of his growing beard irritated his rough hands as they moved across the side of his face. It had only been a week or so that Cameron had quit shaving him and allowed him to do it himself, citing her disbelief that he would actually do it if she gave him the chance to. He chuckled to himself before he reached his hand down and ran it along Cameron's scalp softly, she responded to his touch by slightly turning her head up and opening her eyes.

Cameron stretched out in the back seat of the hummer, her legs rubbing up against the sleeping Angela seated next to the window to her left. The woman paid it no mind and kept her eyes closed while Derek and Kyle in the very back of the vehicle snored loudly before being jostled awake by a slight bump in the road. Martin Bedell eyed everyone from the rear-view mirror and expressed a, "Sorry guys."

"Don't worry about it man," said John, "Just get us to the base so I can lay down and I swear you can run over as many potholes as you want." Everyone chuckled at his tone before they all woke up fully and looked at the strange sight of the power plant in the front view of the windshield.

It looked like a caravan of extra troops had arrived in their absence, at least ten hummers from what John could see from his window, "Shit, looks like we got company guys." He turned his head to Angela and the Reese boys in the back, "Just relax and stay cool. Maybe they will bend down and kiss our ass this time for actually trying their idiotic plans."

The boys looked at John and nodded slowly in reply while Angela looked up at the power plant and let an extremely annoyed expression come across her face. John chuckled at her as Cameron sat up from her slumber and gripped her hand again. He reached down at her left hand and prevented it from prying loose the makeshift bandage, "Don't open that! You don't want to get an infection with it out in the open do you?"

Cameron looked over at him and let the realization wash over her as she said, "No." She rubbed her eyes slightly before opening them wide and stifling a yawn, which threw everyone in the vehicle for a loop.

"Then wait till we get back to base and we'll get you a proper bandage for it," John reassured her as they pulled into the parking lot of the base and found the underground entrance closed. Normally they would drive right under the base and be greeted by a crowd of varying size, but today it looked like they were going to be out in the open as they exited the vehicle. No doubt the whole situation was something to do with Bryant's unexpected presence at the plant.

Tension filled the air as they all exited the vehicle and looked around at the unusual presence that the base exuded. John didn't say anything, neither did anyone else, they just walked up to the main entrance to the base and quietly entered to see the main hall completely empty. Angela and Perry both cast a worried look around the room as everyone came to stand in the main area of the ground floor. If anyone had any reservations about things being even slightly normal in the plant, they were all dashed when a man from the control room platform up above hollered down to them, "Hey! Up here. We need you all in here now."

John looked over at the group standing to his right, "Well guys. Looks like shits hit the fan. Come on, lets go." They all started walking across the empty room and began walking up the catwalk to the command room. He made sure that Cameron and himself were the last up the ladder to ensure them a moment of privacy.

"Hey," his voice whispered into her ear, "no matter what happens don't take that bandage off okay?" John looked at her sternly, hoping that she would read into his warning and do as he asked.

Her eyes studied his face carefully before she replied, "Okay." They both took a deep breath before stepping through the threshold of the door.

There shouldn't have been anyone in the command room but Jesse sitting at the radio terminal, but the room was filled with all of the military leaders that John had meet in the mountain base after being rescued from Skynet Central work camp. Standing in the center of them, at the head of the table, was General Bryant, and he looked about as smug to see Connor as John felt about seeing him.

The room was nearly bursting with personnel, and it made John wonder why the man didn't move the meeting out into the main hall. There would be a ton of room in there compared to the cramped space of the control room. John saw that a couple of the military members were propped up against some of the control booths and glared at them.

"You guys do realize this is a nuclear power plant right? And right now your ass-cheeks are playing around with the buttons that could make this place go boom," John said sternly. Both of the men stood up and left the control panels alone while John looked satisfied that at least someone under Bryant's command had sense enough to listen to him.

Bryant turned his gaze to the two idiot before returning his glance to John, "Thanks for squaring them away Connor. Now, I believe there is a certain _situation_ that needs addressing..."

"If you're talking about the hell hole you sent us into last night then yea, I'd say there is a hell of a lot to discuss right now," John interjected. Bryant looked pissed as his face began turning red from the blood boiling through his veins.

"Would you be talking about the mission to destroy the facility that I ordered your team to carry out? The one that, according to intelligence, is still functional as of this morning?" Bryant replaced his now purple-faced anger with a look of pleasure at grounding their failure into John's face.

This time it was Perry's turn to take a jab at the General, "Sir, you know as well as we do why that facility wasn't destroyed. You told us they were building something in there, something big that needed to be destroyed. You didn't tell us they were building an army of machines, which just so happened to look like they were waiting for us!"

Bryant turned his glare over to Perry, "Now I thought that would be the case with young Connor here but coming from you Perry, I'm offended. I might just burst in to tears from the pain." The man's voice was laced with sarcasm as he turned and looked over everyone of the 132nd team responsible for the assault.

General Bryant took a long and deep breath before returning his attention to John, a looks of absolute satisfaction took up residence on his face, "As of now you are all hereby reassigned from the USA resistance to our Australian neighbors. You want to play cowboy Connor?" The man looked over at John, knowing that he was getting under his skin, "Go do it out there in the desert, you won't be having any more free reign here as far as I'm concerned."

Angela spat out at the man in protest, "Sir you can't do that!"

The snide General turned to the woman and retorted, "I can and I am Major Vasquez. That is, of course, if you all are staying with young Mr. Connor here. If you choose to remain loyal to the resistance you can stay, but you all will be under observation until I determine that Connor's influence over you has been washed away."

John's fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles audibly cracked, and everyone turned their attention back to him, "You'll be sorry for this Bryant. Mark my words, you're going to stare down the face of a machine one day and say your prayers for me to show up. And right when you are at your most desperate hour, I won't be there to save your sorry ass."

Bryant sneered towards John before noticing Cameron peeking her head out from behind his left shoulder, "Now that's funny coming from you Connor. That metal bitch behind you will meet the same end as all of those other stupid fucks that you saw fit to keep stationed here. Men!" He motioned towards the two men flanking John's rear to seize Cameron, and they did.

At first she didn't fight back, she was partially stunned by the man's words, _I'm a machine?...I'm...a machine?_ John's voice broke through from her inner consciousness, "Cameron! Fight back!"

It was if his words let her know that she could in fact repel the men trying to drag her from the room. With a simple move of her arm she pushed the man to her left through the window of the room and out onto the catwalk outside. Next she turned her attention to the man on her right, which was fighting back harder now that his comrade had been disposed of, she put her left hand on the mans skull and pushed ever so slightly, but it was still enough to send him flying across the crowded room and into the concrete wall.

The other men in the room all drew their sidearms and aimed them at Cameron's chest while she stood there and stared down at her arms. John looked over at her and knew she had put two and two together about herself, _Mental note: reason number ten to kill Bryant._

Before any of the soldiers could open fire, not that it would have done any good other then destroying her organic covering, John stepped in front of her as a shield, "You want me gone, fine." John threw a thumb up over his shoulder and pointed at Cameron, "She comes with me."

Bryant smirked over at the boy, "Fine with me_ Connor_. Just get the hell off of this base. The Roo is outside with Miss. Flores and her spoiled brat of a kid, and they are eagerly waiting for you."

John turned his back on the man and faced a very emotionally disturbed Cameron, "Lets get out of here." He started to take her by the and and lead her out of the room before a voice stopped him.

"Not without me," John again turned to see Derek Reese step forward. He winked over at John before facing General Bryant, "He goes, I go too." Derek walked over next to Cameron and John and threw his left arm around the cyborg's shoulder.

Cameron threw him a confused glance before Kyle silently went to stand by his brother. Angela and Perry both moved over near John as well, both of them giving Bryant an explanation as to why they would be accompanying John to Australia. The General looked very displeased with them all, while John beamed with pride. Silently, John turned with Cameron's hand in his and left the room.

* * *

**5 Miles West of Serrano Point, Pacific Ocean**

**January 5, 2014**

**10:57AM**

* * *

The ocean, a great expanse of...nothing. John couldn't comprehend how some people managed to actually make a living out on the seas. _More power to them,_ John thought. Waves rose and fell as the ship moved along with the motion produced by them. He turned from the bow rail and made his way back into the crew cabin entrance.

That was another thing that irked John about ships, the cramped space. Unless he was riding in a vehicle for an extremely long time, he preferred to be in open spaces as much as possible. It wasn't that he was claustrophobic, but something about being in an enclosed space made him feel...trapped.

As he closed the door from outside he saw Cameron sitting alone at the makeshift dinner table, staring at the bandage on her hand. John felt sorry for her, he really did. His plans had been to wait until the right time before telling her what she was, but thanks to Bryant he no longer had that option on the table. She never looked up at him as he walked across the room and sat down at the swaying table with her.

"Cam...I," John began to say before he found himself at a loss for words. _How am I supposed to explain to a machine how being a machine isn't a bad thing?_ He tried to wrap his mind around the concept but only came up with, "How are you feeling?"

She stopped rubbing her hand and looked up at him with her large brown eyes, "I don't understand." Cameron's mouth formed a small pout as she finished her statement.

"What don't you understand?" John asked, he shifted his weight and slouched in the seat.

The motion of the waves outside sent the vessel gently rocking back and forth as an uncomfortable silence filled the room. John's eyes switched from looking at Cameron, to glancing at various places around the room before they would inevitably wind up back on the girl in front of him. After what seemed like an eternity she spoke up, "A...am I...am I here?"

Her eyes told John all he needed to know, they were dilated and gave off a twinge of sadness, "I'm...uh...not sure how to handle that one, Cam. Are you not sure of where you are?"

"Where I am is seven miles west south west of Avila Beach, California. Traveling at a rate of twenty-five knots to approach the destination of Perth, Australia," Cameron never broke her gaze as she fired off the statistics. "What I don't know is, if this is me, or a machine sitting here."

"I don't think of you as a machine," John replied, hoping it would lift her spirits somehow. It did not have the desired effect he wished it would have.

"How can I be sure I am who I am? That what or who I am is really me at all times?" Cameron's eyes fixated back on her hand before she removed the bandage. She saw the large patch of missing skin that was already starting to heal itself slowly, and the mechanical servos underneath.

John sat and watched her quietly before speaking, "Cam." She didn't look up from her hand until he reached over and took hold of it with one of his own, and covered the patch of missing skin with his other, "What we all are and who we are...those are two separate and identical things that none of us have control over."

"Please explain," Cameron said, shifting her weight in the seat and crossing her legs under the table. Her head tilted in sheer curiosity, _ ah that tilt. I've missed that,_ thought John.

"Well take me," John sat up from his slouched position but still kept his hands on Cameron's. "I'm a human, with a human conscious. But what if one day, something was to happen..." Cameron's hand noticeably twitched in John's grasp while he continued, "What if uh...one day something happened, and this body could no longer function? Arguably the only thing that defines a human as a human is our consciousness, some can call it a soul, some can call it whatever they want."

John smirked to himself before continuing, "The point is, if my brain were taken out of this body," John saw her interjection coming before she even did and he raised an eyebrow at her before stating, "This is all theoretical by the way."

"If my brain were taken out of this body, and put into another. Would I not still be John Connor, albeit in a different body?" He sat and watched her carefully as she processed the information.

Her eyes fell from his face to the table as she quietly contemplated his words, "So I am still, me? Only in a different body then before?"

John nodded slowly while she looked back up to him again with those big brown eyes, "But I am still a machine..."

"That depends on your point of view," John said calmly, with the slightest hint of slyness in his voice. He could see Cameron grow even more perplexed so he started explaining again, "What did I say a minute ago? That...what defines us as human was?" He let the 's' of the word was continue on as he waited for her response, soon it sounded like he was imitating a bee instead of asking a question.

"A machine is a tool. Components placed together to achieve a desired outcome..." Cameron started to recite the various definitions of machine that she knew before she was quieted by John's gentle rubbing of her palm.

"A machine is a tool," John affirmed, "but a human is a conscious. And you," John pointed a finger at her skull, "Are both."

He could see that she was starting to protest so he fired back, "Do machines have wants?" The question caused her to pause before she shook her head slowly. "Do machines find it appealing to listen to Deadmau5 at three o'clock in the morning while everyone else is trying to sleep?" Again, his question was met by a shake of her head, "Do machines smile? Do they attach themselves to damn near _everything_ purple, and hate strawberries but love chocolate?"

All of his questions were met with the same response as before, a quiet contemplation period before she shook her head in a 'no' gesture. "Then what I believe, what I've been believing pretty much ever since I got to know you is, you are both a human conscious and a machine body. You may be the first artificially created human in existence, but you are still human."

"Then how do I know which is which? The machine, or the human?" Cameron asked shyly.

"That's something you'll have to find out yourself. But I can tell you this," He leaned over the table and put his face in front of hers, "The machine body will not do anything without the human consciousness telling it to."

For the first time since Bryant had 'outed' her that morning, she looked relaxed and calm. Cameron leaned forward into John's face, her lips not finding their intended target but the tip of his nose. Still, she kissed what they found. They remained there for a second before a cleared throat from the edge of the room sent both of them reeling back in their seats.

Young Jesse Flores walked over and stood beside the table. Her young but keen eyes shifting from a red-faced John to a calm and collected Cameron. "That thing you were wanting to do sir? Now would be the appropriate time to do it." She reached around to the back waistband of her pants and pulled out a 9mm pistol.

Jesse sat it down on the table in front of John before quietly exiting the room. She stopped in the doorway and told them both, "Just remember mate, that's my mum in there. Anything happens to her, and you both will be sinking to the bottom of this crummy ocean."

John smirked as she closed the door and the sounds of her footsteps faded away to nothing. The waves outside were beginning to calm back down now, _the weather must be getting better. _John thought, _Too bad I'm about to sail right back into it._

He looked over at Cameron, who had a smirk of her own on her lips, "Shall we go turn this thing around and give Bryant a piece of our minds?" Cameron nodded and they both stood and exited the room. They had a date with the captain on the bridge. Both of them made their way up the staircase to the bridge calmly on the medium sized transport vessel. John nodded quickly to Cameron before opening the door and letting her step inside.

Cameron raised the gun but didn't fire a warning shot, instead her voice boomed in the small room, "Don't move!"

John stepped inside with his hands behind his back in a calm stance, "Miss Flores, I would be forever in your debt if you would turn this ship around." He watched the woman's eyes carefully as she was about to shake her head 'no', "Mind you I will do this without you if you see fit. But I'd rather it not come to that."

"Back to Serrano Point is its then," came her frightened Australian voice. She began to reach up to the mic to hail the power plant before John reached up and stopped her.

"On second thought, our destination is going to be Baja. Let Bryant have his beloved Serrano Point for now." John's eyes turned to Cameron as Jesse's mother altered their course and began heading for the Baja peninsula.

* * *

This is the first of the new chapters, enjoy :)

To Be Continued...


	19. Chapter 19

****This Chapter includes a 'non-linear' timeline sequence. I apologize before hand if some people don't find it understandable :)

* * *

**Chapter 19: Vengeance**

* * *

_ My mom had always told me since I was little, "John, keep your head down. Avoid being the center of attention."_

_ It kind of went against the purpose of raising a son to be the leader of man-kind but I guess she was doing what she thought was right._

_ Now though, I couldn't afford to keep it down anymore._

_ No now I had a nice little meeting arranged with General Bryan._

_ We were both going to sit down like gentlemen, go over everything, and if he didn't agree, I'd kill him._

_ Harsh concept, but he'd tried to kill me and my entire squad. _

_ He had removed me from the rightful position that I'd earned._

_ And last but most certainly not least, he had revealed to Cameron that she wasn't a human, but a machine._

_ Nobody fucks with my team or friends. I'm free game all day long, but not them._

* * *

**Baja, Mexico – San Sauzal**

**January 5, 2014**

**4:14PM**

* * *

"I thank you for cooperating. Now if you would please step off the ship and come with us there won't be any need for violence," John's voice said firmly. The woman in front of him, Miss. Flores, nodded slowly and exited the ship along with her two man crew. He watched them get off before he turned to Jesse's mother and said, "I never got your first name ma'am."

The woman let out a snort of displeasure, "Name's, mind your own business while you're still alive mate. Which I suspect won't be much longer when the Perth port notifies Serrano Point that we aren't within radio distance within six days."

John kept his calm tone and replied back to her, "So what you are saying is, I have six days to overthrow Serrano Point? Awesome." He turned and asked Cameron and his crew, "Shall we get going?" They all nodded and started walking the four-hundred miles north to Serrano Point.

* * *

They had walked about sixty miles that day, or rather power-walked and jogged sixty miles in a day. Now they were on the outskirts of San Diego, which let John know they had re-entered the former-American border. For now they needed shelter in the desolate ruins of the city. It looked like every other one that John had ever seen destroyed by the blasts three years prior. The city was a little more intact then some he had seen, but the center of the blast was still readily visible because everything in its immediate vicinity was vaporized.

John suspected that Skynet was trying to hit two birds with one stone, which is why the blast radius looked like it was perfectly in between the two towns of San Diego and Tijuana. With a large enough blast it would eradicate both towns, which is what it looked like the system had done. It was that very reason that they had traveled as close to the coast as possible. The area was only about five and a half miles from ground zero but short of swimming around in possible Skynet infested waters, it was their only choice. John didn't know if Skynet were making the water machines in this time line yet, but he knew they were definitely in its' arsenal.

He sneezed while the group kept walking in front of him. John had preferred to keep a rear guard on the group during this expedition. Mostly because of Jesse's mother and her crew. He didn't exactly know what to expect from them, and John didn't like letting someone he didn't know or trust watch his back.

Cameron looked over at John while he sneezed, preventing him from wiping his nose because of her grip on his right hand. He looked up from the cloud of misty snot that he'd produced in the air and watched her laugh at him. Everyone familiar with their strange interactions didn't pay them any attention but the crew of the ship couldn't help but turn around and partially stare at the cyborg.

As soon as John turned his attention from the girl by his side to the scenery up front, the group snapped their heads back around and acted as if they weren't guilty of spying on the two friends. They had just climbed up a sand dune when John saw the most glorious sight he had seen all day; a complex of partially destroyed, partially standing condominiums on the beach.

Most of the buildings looked intact, only the ones that were open to the city and not the ocean were scorched or destroyed by the blasts. _Must have had extra foundations and structural supports in case of storms on the coast,_ John thought. _Either that or earthquake resistance, _his mind retorted against itself. Either way he sliced it in his mind, the buildings nearest to the ocean were standing, and they would provide them with shelter during the cold night ahead.

That was another thing John had took for granted while staying in Serrano Point, the available warmth in the building. The nuclear reactors alone generated heat, but they required constant cooling via sea water pipes in the building, which also provided running water. Power produced there allowed the members of humanity to stay at a comfortable seventy degrees while everything outside was around fifty by day, and below zero by night.

Luckily, Jesse had brought along a small shipping pack from the vessel they had been stationed on. Inside it were a assortment of goods, mostly food and thermal blankets. The blankets were already draped around the shoulders of every member of the squad, save for Cameron who had refused one. Even though her body was shivering, of which John didn't know why, she had flat out refused a blanket be given to her and instead allocated her's to John so he could stay as warm as possible.

John, while still cold from the bitter wind near the beach, still didn't like seeing her shiver and chose to keep her as near as possible to the blankets. Up ahead, Angela reached the perimeter of the first condo, "Hey, looks like they have basements."

_Excellent,_ John though. Basements meant underground space, and underground space meant heat diffusion. Nothing shielded the heat signature of a fire better then being underground with a large house on top of you. "Go about three units in, and we'll make camp in one of those there. Don't want to go taking one on the exterior," John told Angela and Perry near the front.

They slowly made their way through the partially destroyed units until they found one situated directly in the middle of the two rows of units. "Good. Perry, Angela," John turned to the two resistance fighters, "You guys take the mermaids and camp in that one." John pointed to the unit nearest to the group, "Cameron and I are camping in this one," He threw a thumb over his shoulder and pointed to the one behind him. Everyone, including Cameron, looked at him suspiciously before they started moving out and following his orders.

When they had all disappeared inside the building, John took his friends hand and let her into the living room of their condo, "Welcome home I guess." The sarcasm in his tone let her know that he was trying to lighten the mood up.

Cameron winked at him before disappearing into the kitchen to unload her pack of goods on the counter; a 9mm, three grenades, some computer equipment from Danny Dyson's old room, and a couple meals from Jesse. She walked back over to John's position after unloading everything.

John was sitting on a partially dilapidated recliner in the living room and watched her enter the room. What struck him as odd was her walk. Before she had 'died' her walk had always kind of resembled the trot of a horse. It wasn't overly noticeable but it was still there. Now though, her walk looked...extremely human, even borderline seductive. Her hips swayed slightly from side to side and her legs flowed gracefully with each step, unlike the prancing motion that she normally had.

A slight smile crept up her lips as she noticed John eying her from across the room, "You shouldn't stare. It's not polite." The smile stayed on her lips but her brow cinched as if teasingly scolding him.

"Sometimes you make it hard not to," John retorted. He brought his hands up and cradled the back of his head before he turned his eyes up to the ceiling.

Obviously his aversion had the desired response because he heard Cameron, "Hmph," at him and saunter over next to the chair. The next thing John heard was the creaking of the chair as she crawled into it with him and snuggled up next to the left side of his chest. She looked down and grabbed the thermal blanket from the floor and draped it over them both.

The warmth started getting to him along with Cameron's soft purr from his side, and slowly John fell asleep there in the chair. When Cameron heard the first snore escape his mouth she looked up him with a very unsatisfied look on her face. She rolled her eyes before lowering her head back down on his chest, her right ear hovering over his heart. The soft thud within his chest helped her settle back down as she too slowly fell asleep there.

* * *

Across the alleyway, Jesse watched the both of them through the window separating the two buildings. When she saw the machine lower herself down into the chair with John, she turned her head from the window and walked back to where Angela and the others were sitting in the basement. At the bottom stair the young girl stopped and sat down, not wanting to venture further and disturb her mother's group. She eyed the eldest Reese brother as he got up with an MRE in his hand and came walking over to her.

Derek took a seat next to the black haired Australian teen and offered her the meal in his hands, "Here, you haven't eaten anything in a few hours. Gotta keep your strength up."

"Easy there mate, I only need a meal," she grinned and took the meal from him thankfully.

"I've seen you hanging around the radio room you know?" Derek looked up at the bland wall in front of him before turning back to the girl next to him.

"Yea, we kind of have this thing called _jobs_ around the base. Sometimes we happen to show up at our posts on time," Jesse retorted while shoving a spoonful of chicken and rice in her mouth. Derek pouted that he couldn't break through to the girl and hung his head low. Jesse looked over at him as if she were about to either slap him or burst out laughing, "Cheer up mate, you get offended to easily." She took another bite of her meal, "Still ain't getting in my knickers though." If Derek looked like he had been pouting before, it multiplied by ten-fold when she said that.

* * *

There was a noise, a faint noise, barely audible at all but there had still been a noise. It was enough to make Cameron raise up out of the chair from John. Her eyes looked around the room curiously before turning her head back to look at John. He was nestled there in the chair, and seemed to smile as she left him before tugging the blanket closer to his body.

_Odd,_ Cameron thought, _normally John enjoys my company._ Her mind was taken from the scene around her as she heard the noise again, the faintest noise known to man-kind, but it was still there. _Something is out there, _her mind conjured up as she walked into the kitchen and grabbed the 9mm stashed on the counter. Her bare feet prodded the ground gently as she made her way lithely to the door.

One look out the window did nothing to help in her investigation, from Cameron's vantage point there was simply nothing outside at all. The noise repeated itself again and this time she recognized what it was, the slightest whir of a mechanical servo. She immediately looked back at John resting peacefully in the chair but he seemed to be perfectly fine, _I will alert him when a threat has been identified._

With her hand caressing the doorknob ever so gently, she opened the door quietly and stepped outside. The cool breeze of the ocean blew her hair over her shoulders and sent it flapping in the wind like a flag. Cameron studied the scene outside but couldn't for the life of her find anything worthy of note. Every ten or fifteen seconds the noise would repeat itself again, each time growing just slightly louder then the last.

Without even making a sound she walked across the pavement and entered the condominium where the other resistance fighters were staying. As soon as she shut the door behind her the noise repeated itself again, this time seemingly very close-by. Cameron's head snapped to the basement stairs, where the sound had seemed to originate and began making her way over to them with the stealthiness enviable of an elite navy seal.

Step after step she quietly entered the basement of the complex. Her eyes danced around the very dark room where a small fire cast just enough light for her to see. It was about the average sized basement, a ten by fourteen room. Brick walls with plaster on them served as the walls while it stocked a freezer, small wine selection, and in the corner an old television set housed within a particle-board entertainment center.

In the center of the room was the dying fire, and the humans were scattered around it in a circular arc trying to stay warm while they slept. _Where is the noise coming from,_ her mind asked as she heard it again, only this time it was coming from upstairs. Cameron turned on her heels and raced back up the stone steps as the noise grew louder and she heard a metallic 'thunk' of a footstep outside the home.

When she reached the ground floor her eyes studied the view outside of the window carefully, trying to catch a glimpse of where the predator was. All of a sudden she saw it, clear as day, inside the place with John. It all happened so fast that it seemed like a blur; Cameron ran to the door only to find it locked, somehow she kicked it down and hurried across the pavement street to John's door, again after she kicked it down she found herself looking at a horrible sight.

The machine had made it to John's sleeping position in the chair and killed him. He lay there clutching his chest as the machine stood hovering over him, holding John's heart in its hands. The muscle was still beating as it studied it carefully before crushing it to a pulp in its metallic fingers. Blood began oozing down the pistons and dripping on to John's now lifeless eyes.

Cameron looked at the machine in horror as she raised the gun to open fire on it. The T-600 stood there calmly before a voice emanated from its chest cavity, "Congratulations. You have done what I have set out to do from the very beginning of this whole debacle. You have made it possible to kill John Connor!" She let out a scream as she unloaded the clip into the metallic brute.

Suddenly though she felt warm hands on her face and opened her eyes to see John staring down at her from the chair, "You frigging minx."

* * *

Cameron flinched in the chair next to John which sent him from a semi-happy dream to full blown agony as the grip on his hand tightened more and more. He tried not to wake her and remove his hand from her grasp but she wouldn't let him budge. John chuckled to himself and started trying to wake her up, "Cam...hey Cam. I need my hand."

The only thing she did was mumble something and not even budge while doing that, which made John smile even more as the grip tightened again. "Cam, last warning..." John teasingly threatened, and again she did nothing. _Goddamn, Cam,_ John's mind screamed at her,_ Let go of my hand!_

But suddenly she did exactly what he had asked for, and released his hand. Cameron then snaked her arm across his torso into a semi-hug. "You frigging minx," John chuckled again as she tightened her grip on his chest. _Oh Jesus freaking Christ. _

"If you wanted me to stop all you had to do was ask," Cameron replied but still kept her eyes closed. But after a moment or so of silence she loosened her grip and looked up to see John breath a huge sigh of relief.

"I asked," John gulped another breath of air, "more then once."

Cameron nudged him with her head and lowered it back down on his chest, "I meant ask nicely."

John burst out in laughter, "Oh I'm sorry. How about, _Please let go of my hand you are crushing it to a pulp?_"

She looked up at him slowly, "That would have worked. But you didn't ask nicely."

John's laugh subsided and he looked down at her big brown eyes, "Since when did you start doing this?" The question threw Cameron for a loop and she tried to tilt her head, but it was hard with John's chest in the way.

"Start what?"

If John was prepared for any question that Cameron would ever ask him, it was sure was that one. He cleared his throat and tried to string the words together from his mind, "Well, you've never acted like this before. You're acting...human."

"It was only a few hours ago that you told me I was human, John. How is it strange that you find me acting that way," Cameron asked him .

"Well for the past four years you've been slowly changing into something that I don't know, I guess I would call it you being normal. But in the past few months, its like you did a complete one-eighty from what I used to know as you," John said slowly, hoping she wasn't taking his words as displeasure.

"I don't know what normal is, am I acting normal?" Cameron's head tilted up again as she tried to understand what John was telling her. _He is so confusing sometimes. Act this way, not this way. Try and do this, but never do that. _

"Normal is open to interpretation, Cam. Take me for example; When I was little I lived in thirty different places before age ten. I never had any friends, except for mom, and all I did was either train, complain, or try no to go insane. For me, those three things were normal. Now take another ten year old for example, if he started acting the way I was acting he wouldn't be doing normal things by his standards, he would be acting strangely." John kept his eyes on hers as the last bit of sunlight fell below the horizon of the ocean outside.

"So I am not acting the way I normally act, that is what you are saying?" Cameron sat up on the chair, her hair draped down around her skull and hid her face from John.

He started shivering as the blanket removed itself from him as she sat up in the chair, "Yes, but I never said it was a problem. Merely that you are acting differently then you normally do."

She tweaked an eyebrow upwards at his statement, "Then why bring it up in the conversation? If you already knew the answer to your initial question you shouldn't need to..." Cameron's voice trailed off as the knowledge of what John had been doing slowly washed over her, "Just making conversation..."

John smiled slowly and nodded, "Now, if you _please_, I would really like you to lay back down with the blanket. It's freaking freezing, Cam." Cameron smiled a warm smile before lowering herself back down on top of John.

"John?" Her voice broke through the soft silence of the waves on the shore, "Good night."

"Good night, Cam," John wrapped his left arm around her torso and drifted off to sleep again, just as she did.

* * *

The next morning they started walking out again, through the bitter cold to their destination. John looked particularly perky, while Derek seemed to be suffering a major case of depression to everyone. Nobody seemed to be able to figure out Derek's self-imposed pity party but Jesse, and she ignored him to the best of her ability.

It was only about a quarter mile away from the complex when they found a vehicle large enough to accommodate all nine of them. The large Chevy suburban was stuffed to the brim with them and their gear inside of it, but they were soon off at an even faster pace to Serrano Point.

"Keep to the coast as much as possible," John told Angela, who was seated behind the large vehicle.

She turned her eyes up from the windshield and looked at John through the rear-view mirror, "I'll try amigo, but this thing wasn't made for off roading."

John smirked behind the back seat and turned around to face Derek and Kyle, "You guys remember the plan right?"

The two brothers eyed him as it saying 'no shit' and said in unison, "Yea, why?"

"Just figured you guys wouldn't mind getting into the fight for once ya know?" John turned and sat back down between Bedell and Cameron, who was asleep again with her head resting against the window.

Martin looked over at John questionably before leaning over and asking in his ear, "Why is she pretending to be asleep? Its kind of creeping me out man."

John nodded slowly at his friend, he could certainly see why he would be freaked out, the last time he had seen a machine like Cameron it had tried to kill him. He reached over and gently lifted Cameron's hand from his right thigh and held it up in the air. Bedell eyed it curiously before watching John drop her hand. At first it didn't do anything it only remained in place and hovered in mid-air, but slowly it began moving back down until it rested again on his thigh.

"She's not pretending," John said simply. "I don't know why she sleeps, neither does she. But I do know that she does sleep, and kind of a lot."

John turned his attention from the stunned man beside him to everyone in the vehicle, "When we get there guys, just remember, Bryant's mine to deal with." Everyone nodded in unison at his statement and he leaned his head back on the seat behind his head and slowly drifted off to sleep, he was going to need it for what he had planned.

* * *

**Serrano Point, California**

**January 6, 2014**

**11:17PM**

* * *

The van crept slowly into the Avila Beach community outside of the power plant like a snail. For all they knew, Bryant had scouts on the exterior of the buildings and he would spot them before they got a chance to really do something. Luckily though, if there were any scouts they hadn't alerted the occupants of the vehicle to their presence.

John tried to stretch his cramped limbs from the very back of the large vehicle. It was all part of his plan, claim the ship had sunk and that the survivors had came back to the power plant seeking shelter. For all he knew, Bryant would happily accept any tall-tale that involved John's death. It all hinged on whether they were going to search the vehicle or not.

Behind the rear seat were John and Cameron, both wrapped around each other in a tight enclosure. There was a small canvas canopy that was rolled over the top of them, which to anyone not willing to pay much attention from outside would look like the carpet of the vehicle. Why Chevy had included it on this particular model of suburban John would never know, but the thanked the maker silently while Cameron blew her cool breath into his ear.

"Cam," John said quietly, the left side of his face pressed against the right side of her own face, "if things get sticky in there. You take the others and get out of there, understood?"

She tried to peel herself away from him and face him straightly but the tight enclosure prevented Cameron from doing such a thing. Gently, she pulled him tighter and simply nodded into his collarbone. "Okay."

Just then John heard a, "Halt!" from the outside of the vehicle. He tensed his body up and he felt Cameron completely stop breathing next to him. At first he was tempted to tell her not to hold her breath before he remembered that she didn't actually need to breath at all.

"Major Vasquez, Perry, you mind telling me what you all are doing here?" It was Bryant's voice, of that John was absolutely sure. _Good thinking on the crawl space hideaway John, he spotted you all after all._ John gave himself a pat on the back for thinking one step ahead of the man before quieting back down.

Jesse's mother spoke up from the second row of seats, "Me boat sank mate. Had to do some dog-paddling but we all got back in one piece, well except for Connor."

John could hear the anticipation in the General's voice when he asked, "And where would _Connor_ be, Miss. Flores?"

"Last time I saw him he was sinking to the blue depths with the cyber-girl. I don't think she swims sir," The woman's voice sounded creepily convincing to everyone, including John.

"Is that so? How do I know that he isn't watching from somewhere in the distance right now? For all I know he's waiting for me to let you into the plant before making his move. Or perhaps you are acting as a distraction," The man drew his firearm and John heard the click of the safety being thrown off, "Is that what you're doing here Miss. Flores?"

John didn't believe what he had done to Angela months ago by shooting her in the hand, he barely had control over himself then. But John was still shocked when he heard Bryant repeat, "Are you acting as a distraction for young Mr. Connor?"

He felt Cameron hold him tightly as Jesse's mother uttered a trembling, "No." Only a moment or so had passed before John heard the last thing he wanted to her, a gunshot. The bullet pierced through the woman's chest and came arcing down through the seat and dug itself into John's right shoulder. He wanted to scream out in pain but Cameron prevented him from doing so.

The girl next to him moved her face in front of his, quite impossibly given the angle they were both laying in, and planted her mouth square onto his. John barely even registered the gesture, the only thing concerning him right now was trying to be as still as possible and not scream out into Cameron's mouth form the pain of the gunshot. He had been through a lot of things in the past, and being shot was not one of them. John took a deep breath in through his nose while a tear rolled down his cheek in pain.

Cameron kept her mouth in place as John heard a, "Well if he is planning a dashing entrance, he can at least loose a member of his squad." John couldn't hear what Bryant was doing but Cameron could.

Bryant had turned the gun to his right and aimed it at either one of the shipmates or the Reese brothers. Her grip on John's body intensified as she knew that another bullet would certainly tear through the seat again and hit John. Just as Bryant cocked the gun again she heard the lever depress and the man silently placed it back in its holster, "Proceed into the base."

John exhaled into her mouth with a burst of hot damp air, and she swallowed it calmly. Cameron opened her eyes and saw John's tightly shut from the pain of the gunshot wound. Soon they were on the ramp that lead to the basement level of the plant and she felt John lean into her more as the incline of the vehicle increased. After a few more moments the vehicle came to a stop and the rear doors of the vehicle opened as everyone got out.

"What is that?" Cameron heard one of the guards ask the group of new arrivals.

"Wine, we snagged it out of an old house we stayed in once we made it to shore. Thought it might go over as a peace offering to Bryant," Angela seethed at the man, "Before he went and shot a defenseless woman. I think we'll be keeping it for ourselves now."

_Stupid idiots,_ John's mind sneered before he again recoiled in the pain of the gunshot wound. Cameron released her grip on his body and moved her mouth away form his after an hour had passed by without them being discovered. "Sorry about that," she said sheepishly.

"You don't have to," John grunted from the pain in his shoulder, "apologize for anything, Cam." She gave him a smile before opening the back of the vehicle and sticking her head out of the opening to scan the surroundings.

"The coast is clear," Cameron rolled out of the vehicle and stood behind it, gesturing for John to follow her with her hand. "We should go now," She remained standing there as John crawled form the back of the van.

"Argh," John let a gasp of pain escape his lips as his feet came to rest on the concrete floor. His left arm was snaked around and holding on to his right shoulder.

"Let me see," Cameron said and simply ripped the shirt he was wearing off his body with two fingers. John stood before he in a daze while she looked carefully at the wound. There wasn't an exit would, which spelled trouble in a world with sub-par medical treatment. "This might hurt John," Her eyes locked onto his as she stuck her index finger into the wound on the back of his shoulder.

John's eyes grew out in pain, not from her finger being inside the bullet hole, but the sharp jagged pain the bullet was making as she began pushing in through the other side of his chest. _Might? Understatement of the frigging century Cam!_

The bullet was only lodged about an eight of an inch from the front of his chest, having nearly went all the way through the shoulder. It didn't take much pushing for it to cut through the front skin and fall to the floor. Cameron did regret not being able to simply pull it from his body but the wound wasn't big enough to fit two of her fingers into, even as small as they were.

John winced once more and grunted as the bulled hit the floor, emitting an audible 'ping' as it did. His eyes clamped shut as Cameron brought up a pack of bandages from her kit and packed the openings of his wounds with gauze to stop the bleeding. She gently put on the covering bandage and handed John his 9mm, "Time for payback, John?"

He looked up at her carefully, his eyes still stinging from holding back the tears that were trying to form in them, "Oh yes." John shoved himself up off of the vehicle's rear bumper and cocked the gun, "Oh hell yes."

* * *

To Be Continued...


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20: Bryant**

* * *

**Serrano Point, California**

**January 7 2014**

**12:01AM**

* * *

"Please don't kill me," Bryant mumbled between a gasp of breath and a few tears. The look on the man's face showed his true terror. He shook the restraints on the chair but they didn't give at all, Bryant remained firmly planted in the chair. The only thing Bryant accomplished by trying to escape was making the chair jump up and down on the floor.

John sat on the table in front of the man and contemplated just ending him right there, but he was curious. "Do you even know how you came to be in this mess Bryant?"

Beads of sweat began running down the man's cheek's as John pointed the gun square between his eyes. Bryant went cross-eyed from trying to look at the barrel of the gun. He gulped a large lungful of air, "Well I...I...I was at West Point and then the hell hole started. Machines came up everywhere, and some snot-nosed punk came in here and demanded we all follow his orders!"

Bringing the gun about to the left side of Bryant's face, John swung it hard and slapped him with the tip of the barrel. "Now Ephraim, It's not nice to mock the person with a gun pointed at your face." John's voice was calm, but he was desperately trying to hid the pleasure and sarcasm in it.

"Go ahead, pull the trigger. I dare you! Nobody is going to follow you if you murder one of the leaders of the human resistance! I tried to bring peace and resolution to everyone's remaining time spent on Earth, and you just come in and try babysitting mission!" The man spat in John's face, and he had to remove the large wad of spit from his cheek with his sleeve.

"That may be so, but you have to answer for everything you've done. You claim you are trying to bring peace to people? How can that be so when all you do is send everyone under your command out on bunny trails, you just pick a target and attack. I don't think you know what you're doing at all. I think you are a sniveling coward who thinks he is the greatest person to walk the Earth. One who doesn't fully grasp what in the hell is going on in the world today," John stared the man down with his mothers famous thousand-yard stare.

"Pah! You think I give a shit what you think Connor? You're dead, you hear me! As soon as one of my subordinates finds out that you're friends let you into the base..." Bryant was cut off by John's voice.

"The guards that just so happen to be piss drunk from the bottles of wine we brought into the base? Even the ones who aren't slopping drunk are being rounded up into a bus by Perry, Angela, Derek, and Kyle. So that little reunion with everyone is just going to be taking place between you, and me."

Bryant's face turn blood red from anger and he again tried to struggle free from the restraints on the chair only to fail miserably. "Let me the fuck out of here, Connor! NOW!"

"You know what the bad thing about separating yourself from everyone else is Bryant?" John asked while ignoring the mans demand, "It's the solidarity of the whole situation." He stood and walked over to Danny's old radio command module and playing with the microphone a little bit. "You can never rely on people to show up at your every beck and call when you close yourself from the world."

"So what are you going to do," asked Bryant nervously.

John turned to look at him again before saying, "I haven't made up my mind yet."

* * *

**Serrano Point, California**

**January 6, 2014**

**38 Minutes Earlier**

* * *

"Just squeeze my hand as hard as you need to," Cameron said as she slowly made their way to the medical area of the resistance base. John did as she asked and squeezed her hand from the pain, but she didn't feel any type of discomfort from it. Normally she would feel something, a sensation, from such a thing but now, in the heat of the mission she couldn't feel anything.

"Well I never got to use the hospital here," joked John, "at least now I can say I got shitty treatment just like everyone else."

His words affected Cameron greatly because she halted her walk and spun around to face him, "I do not give out shitty treatment."

John chuckled to himself before explaining, "I'm talking about the piss-poor supplies we have here, Cam. I'm not talking about your ability to wield them."

She thought about what he said for a moment before emitting an 'oh' and turned around to continue their walk. They rounded a corner and up ahead of them was one more corner to walk around before they would be at the hospital area before Cameron noticed something that made her freeze in her tracks.

Up ahead of them was the cast shadow of a soldier of Bryant's that everyone in John's unit had failed to ascertain. He looked like a large man, and well built, and the silhouette of the M16 didn't do much to help he situation. Cameron was just about to spin around and yank John out of the man's line of fire when she saw another shadow approach from her left flank.

It only took a fraction of a second but she raised the 9mm stashed in the front of her pants up to where the shadow would soon be standing in full view. Cameron was just about to pull the trigger when she saw who it was and John made her lower the weapon. The friendly woman in the hijab stared at them curiously before nodding in understanding.

She turned and walked toward the man, who flung his cigarette butt on the floor in front of John and Cameron. The woman rounded the corner and walked right up to the man, "Please, please! I need help. My sister, she is very sick, I need help to carry her here." Cameron heard the man grunt in acknowledgment before turning and following the shrouded woman back down the adjacent hallway, he didn't even seem to notice that the woman was leading him to the garage section.

Both of them waited for a moment or so before rounding the corner and entering the hospital of the power plant. John made his way to the table nearest to the door while hunched over and clutching his shoulder while Cameron started looking for supplies. Unfortunately John was right about the facility, it was seriously underwhelmed in terms of treatment options.

Cameron turned to look at him and saw that blood had began running down from under the gauze and bandages she had applied earlier. _The wound needs to be cauterized to stop the bleeding, then I can worry about sewing it up,_ she said to herself before turning and withdrawing the clip from her 9mm.

As if the bullets were made of play-dough she removed the bullet heads and emptied the gun powder from all but three bullets in the magazine. Cameron wiped the pile of gunpowder onto a sheet of paper and made her way back over to John. He eyed the material very nervously before swallowing whatever saliva was in his mouth and turned his eyes from the gunpowder to her.

"Won't a field dressing do?" John asked, his eyes settling back onto the pile of powder.

"It would, but we do not have access to one right now. At this moment the blood flow is too great to be stopped by a normal bandage that we have. I need to cauterize your wound," Cameron said sympathetically and pinched a portion of the pile in between her fingers while removing the bandages from John's front and back. "Just breath, John."

He started heaving in large amounts of air as she packed a small amount of powder in to the front and back wounds of the bullet hole. Cameron lit a match and brought it up to the front and watched it catch fire before snuffing itself out quickly, the blood had ceased flowing in the process. She did the same for the rear wound but this time John leaped off of the table and would had made a break for the door before she wrapper her arms around him in a bear-hug to prevent him from running as the powder extinguished itself.

After a few moments of the searing pain John passed out and Cameron laid him softly back down onto the table. She studied his face for a moment or so before looking over the powder burn to see if it had done its duty, and it had. Very gently, she unwrapped the new bandage and applied it before splashing his face with a little water from a nearby canteen.

John coughed up the water that had went into his mouth and stared up at the girl in front of him as she offered him two tablets, "You need to take these now."

He studied the two pills carefully before asking, "What is it? Antibiotics?"

Cameron nodded slowly while saying, "Penicillin. There is iodine in the van for later, but right now these will do."

John took the pills and swallowed them down with a gulp of water. The liquid ran down his throat as he stood up from the table onto his feet, Cameron hovered next to him looking to catch him if she should start to topple over.

Seeing this, John laughed, "I'm alright, Cam. Now lets get going."

* * *

**Crew Quarters – Serrano Point, California**

**January 6, 2014**

**14 Minutes Earlier**

* * *

They both walked out of the hospital area as quietly as possible. It was nearing midnight and there was not a living soul in the corridor save for John and the girl standing next to him. The late hour coupled with the wine they had brought back from the condo's had made sure that their coup de etat would go over as smoothly as possible.

"Do you think this is the right thing to do?" John whispered to Cameron as they made their way towards the staircase leading up to the ground floor. John had gone over what he needed to do a thousand times in his head, but right now he needed a second opinion.

Cameron continued walking by his side while studying the area's of interest in front of them with her pistol, "I don't know."

John scoffed, "Since when do you not know what to do?"

She turned her head to him slowly before saying, "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you should do. It's your decision."

_My decision...great. _John hated the thought of killing someone, even one as deserving as death as Bryant. It just didn't seem right to him, and it went against everything his mother had ever taught him which was to protect lives at all costs. _So how am I supposed to end this man?_

Killing was wrong, but then again Bryant had killed many times more people; either directly or by sending them out on death missions of his. Two wrongs don't make a right, so John was confused on how to proceed with the situation. On one hand he knew that the plan was to kill Bryant, take over his command and begin fighting the real war against Skynet. In the other hand was the voice of reason, the voice of his mother. All it said was a simple phrase that it kept repeating, _Protect the humans, destroy the machines._

They both reached the stairs and Cameron pushed him back and proceeded up the stairs first, with John following her when she gave a signal to notify the coast was clear. As he stepped onto the landing of the ground floor, John began looking around furiously at the squad of soldiers that were sitting around a small fire.

_Idiots,_ John seethed internally, _they get piss-drunk, pass out, and leave a fire going inside of a nuclear fucking power plant!_ He wanted to go over there and punch every single one of them in the face, but he knew he couldn't. Right now he needed to subdue Bryant and figure out what to do with him, and quickly. John didn't know if the man had a group of soldiers out on patrol, if he did that meant they could be discovered before he had the chance to remove the sloppy General from power.

"Watch them, and make sure that nobody comes into the control room," John told Cameron rather forcefully. His anger wasn't directed at her, it was directed at himself for being torn over the conflict of what to do with Bryant.

Cameron hesitated before she spoke softly, "John, be careful please." She turned and began watching the men like John had asked, not wanting to see him climb the stairs and confront the man in the room. The sounds of his boots hitting the concrete of the floor, and later the metal of the stairs echoed in the room as he made his way in to the control room.

John had expected this to be a very cut and dry mission; get in, remove Bryant from power, start fighting Skynet. This all hinged on the willingness of whether Bryant was as much of a drunk as his men. Everyone down below were passed out stone drunk from the strong wine. How they managed to get drunk enough off of wine to pass out, John didn't know, but somehow they did. As he rounded the last step on the stairwell and opened the door of the control room he could see that Bryant was indeed, drunk as hell.

The man was sitting in the front chair of the table, turned towards the wall, singing very sluggishly, "You put the lime in the coconut and drink them both together...put the lime in the coconut...hiccup...and drink em both up...I said doctor!" His obnoxious ranting was more lively now that it was aided by alcohol, and John was nearly tempted to start laughing at him before he remembered why he was in the room in the first place. John started walking up to the man from behind, ready to kill him if he saw fit to.

"Mercy please! Please, mercy!" Bryant shut his eyes as John pointed the barrel of the gun between them and nearly pulled the trigger.

"Do you know all you've done under your command?" John replied sarcastically, "No? Let me refresh your memory. You sent people out on eighty-seven missions during your time as leader. Of those eighty-seven missions, you lost over five-thousand men and women. Five thousand people Bryant," John repeated it again just for emphasis.

"That's about the size of half the places I've ever lived in during my youth. And you murdered a woman in front of other people, while they were all unarmed. And the icing on the cake, you sent me and my team out on a suicide mission hoping that the thorn in your side would die out in the field," John made a 'tsk' sound a few times before he removed the gun from the man's face.

"Yea, yea sure. But you shot one of your subordinates in the hand, don't shove all that shit in my face. You aren't as innocent as you want everyone to believe either," The man seethed his words while trying to struggle free from the chair again.

"True, I did loose control of myself for a short while. But I learned from my mistakes. Did you? Did you learn from your mistakes Bryant? No, you kept repeating them over and over and over," John retorted.

"When I shot Angela, I learned my boundaries. Never again will I ever stoop that low Bryant. I learned what not to do in command, and to reign in your emotions while making decisions. I always thought you could remain in charge and keep your emotions at the same time, but I learned that you can't do that all the time," John finished up his explanation and watched Bryant carefully.

"And it is because of those boundaries," John reached down and untied the restraints bounding Bryant to the chair, "I'm going to let you go. But be warned, if you ever...ever pull any of this shit again with another base, I will personally come and kick your ass."

"That's it? Just letting me go?" Bryant looked confused as hell as John walked back to the row of control panels and leaned up against it before nodding back at him. "Where am I supposed to go then?"

John looked up from his shoulder, which he had been checking on, and eyed Bryant coldly, "That isn't my problem, pick a direction and start walking, but I don't ever want to see you in this area again."

Bryant looked at the boy again before standing up on his feet. A loud bang rang out in the room which sent John looking around for its source while ducking for cover, and Bryant falling down to the floor dead. A bullet wound from his temple oozed blood out onto the floor as John discovered who had fired at the man, Jesse Flores.

"Bastard shot my mother, nobody gets away with that sir. Throw me in the brig if you want, I don't care. I made my choice," Jesse lowered the gun and looked down at the floor for a second. She wiped a falling tear away before looking back up at John and exhaling a large breath of air, "I can live with it."

* * *

Quite a short chapter, but it was pretty much a self-contained incident that took place in it.

To Be Continued...


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21: The Aftermath Of Bryant's Downfall**

* * *

**Serrano Point, California**

**January 7, 2014**

**12:03AM**

* * *

Jesse had just killed Bryant from across the room with the 9mm in her hands, one that John immediately recognized as Cameron's pistol, _Why did Cameron give her a gun?_

"Jesse, give me the gun," John slowly walked over to her and took the gun from her hands. Surprisingly she didn't even try to hold onto it, it was if everything she intended to do with the gun had been done and she wanted it gone from her grasp. It was all over, and she had shot Bryant dead there in the control room of the large power plant.

John threw her a questionable look before telling her, "Go on, get out of here before someone see's you!"

Jesse eyed him for a moment while a few tears fell down her cheeks before finally asking, "Sir?" She didn't understand the boy's actions, _Aren't I supposed to be punished? Court marshaled? Something? I killed the General of the human resistance for crying out loud!_ But John just remained in front of her calmly and looked deep into her eyes.

"Get out of here before someone see's you. I can't afford to loose my best radio tech because everyone thinks that she blew the General's brains out," John half-pushed half-shoved her out of the room and shut the door behind her. He contemplated what to do while he heard another pair of footsteps outside.

John didn't turn to see who they belonged to, he could tell just by the weight of them. It came no surprise when the door opened and Cameron walked in behind him. She shut the door so quietly that John couldn't even hear it before she made her way over to him and laid a hand on his wounded shoulder.

"Your wound is bleeding again," Cameron spoke softly before her index finger began peeling off the back bandage.

"I'll deal with it later," John said, almost as if his attention were a million miles away from the current situation they faced.

"Right now I don't know what to do," John continued while Cameron pressed the bandage back down onto his back, "I mean...I know what to do, I just can't decide which choice to take." His head turned and finally looked at the girl standing behind him.

Cameron remained silent for what felt like forever to John, he kept waiting for her to tell him what he needed to do but she never did. After finally seeing that she wasn't going to give him a clue on what to do he added on, "I don't know whether to tell people he was killed by someone randomly, or to take the blame myself."

"If I tell everyone that a stranger did it, there will always be hushed rumors wherever I go. People would stop and remark 'there goes Connor, the guy that killed Bryant for his position.' But if I tell everyone I did it then I loose everyone's respect and loyalty. How are people supposed to follow my command if they are afraid I'm going to shoot them in the head if they don't follow my orders?" In a moment of desperation he looked up at Cameron again and stood on his feet, John's face no more than an inch away from her own.

"Tell me what I need to do," John whispered as he leaned forward and rested his head on Cameron's brow, "I don't know what to do."

Cameron again remained silent while he kept internally asking her to speak. _Come on Cam. I need you right now!_ Finally though she did speak up, "Do you know why you are destined to be the leader of mankind, John?'

John paused as if never pondering the question before, when in reality he thought about it on nearly a daily basis, "I truly don't."

"It is because you think about everything. You don't make one move that isn't calculated or strategical. I'm not saying you are perfect, no human is, but the other leaders of men, all the great ones, were renowned for their ability to think about the entire situation they were in and work within that situation flawlessly. You are one of those people, and whatever you decide is the right option. Each choice has its advantages and disadvantages, but each choice is one that only John Connor can make, not me," Cameron ended her discussion with John on a resolute note.

_Women,_ John thought. He chuckled at himself before standing up straight again, "Tell Perry and the men to take Bryant out on the beach and give him a proper burial. I've got to radio command and tell them what has went down." Cameron nodded and turned to leave before he stopped her by grabbing her left hand. Her head turned slowly to face him while she partially smiled. "And you," John said, "Return to the van the first chance you get. I'll be waiting."

Cameron again nodded but remained silent as she turned and left the room. John watched her turn from the door and begin waking down the stairs leading to the ground floor. He let out a huge sigh as he made his way over to the radio console and turned it on. After finding the correct frequency for command he began making his broadcast to the world.

"This is John Connor of Serrano Point. General Bryant is dead, gunshot wound to the head. Many of you appreciated his command, others didn't, and I'm not complaining about either. It's time for a change, nobody else has to die needlessly in this war. Tomorrow I will be organizing a plan of attack against the enemy, we're going to start showing Skynet who it's dealing with. If anyone out there is listening to this, start gathering as many troops together as you can, and confiscate all plasma rifles that you can from the battlefields. Skynet wants to make superior weapons, we'll start fighting fire with fire."

He paused for a slow breath before ending with, "You all deserve better, I intend to hold true to that. John Connor, Serrano Point, out." John set the microphone back down on the desk and turned to leave the room while voices began crackling in one after the other, each one demanding he answer for what he'd done.

John had been prepared for them, taking the middle ground had its negative effects but right now that is what they needed. They didn't need someone saying, "Hey look at me! I killed the General!" anymore then they needed someone else saying, "It wasn't me! It was this person!"

His feet carried him from the control down to the ground floor before he saw Perry and Martin Bedell rounding the corner from the beach entrance, bot of them looked extremely tired. John halted at the bottom of the stairs and waited for them to approach him before he spoke, "Hey, you guys get everything taken care of downstairs?"

Both of the men nodded silently and waited for him to explain why Cameron had told them to meet John on the ground hall. John spoke up, "Bryant's upstairs. You two mind burying him outside? I have to go take care of this damn bullet hole he gave me." Again both of the men nodded solemnly and stepped out of the way for him to leave.

Martin looked back at Perry once John had ventured down the steps to the basement level, "He seem different to you?"

Perry stood silent for a few seconds before nodding with a grin on his face, "Definitely. Hopefully it's for the better. It sure feels like it is."

Bedell slapped Perry on the shoulder, "Come on, lets get the dipshit taken care of."

Perry snickered at the young man before turning and following him up the stairs to the control room. Both of them saw Bryant laying on the floor before even entering the room, and both of them looked relieved when they saw him laying dead with a large pool of blood accumulating below.

Bedell made his way over to the body quickly and grabbed the man's hands before stopping and waiting on Perry to do the same with his feet. Martin looked extremely impatient as he waited on Perry, who was busy reading a note from John left by the radio controls.

"Whats the hold-up?" Martin asked with an annoyed tone. As far as he was concerned, they needed to get the dead lump of meat out of the base as quickly as possible.

"Connor's note, here," Perry handed the note to Martin, who had to drop the dead man's hands onto the cold floor and read the letter, "take a look at it."

Martin's eyes flew across the lines of the page almost inhumanly fast before they flew up to Perry, "Can't be, can it?

* * *

Nobody was in the halls at all while he made his way back to the van where Cameron was waiting for him. Oddly enough she looked like she was trying to battle herself to stay awake, which made John slightly smile. He made his way quietly over to her before opening the rear door of the vehicle and ushering her inside.

They reclined the rear seat down into a makeshift bed and laid down on it. Seconds and minute ticked by as they remained there in silence before Cameron broke it, "What did you select?" Her fingers began tracing of the bandage on the front of his shoulder next to where her head lay.

"Hmm?" John was taken from his near sleeping state by her voice. "Choose?" He turned his head to look at her before he kne what she was talking about, "Oh, I didn't deny or admit who had been the murdeur. If people want to make stories, let them, I don't care. The only thing that matters to me is stopping Skynet."

"Very wise," Cameron smiled and returned her head down onto his skin and stopped playing with the bandage on his shoulder. "We need to change this before you go to sleep."

John breathed a sigh of relief and looked back up at the roof of the van, "I'll worry about that, you just take it easy."

Cameron sat up beside John as he removed the bandage from the front shoulder wound while she removed the one from his back, "You can't do everything yourself, John. It's okay to need help sometimes."

He quirked an eyebrow at her as he applied a slight smear of iodine to the burn mark, "This coming from the person who didn't give me advice when I asked them." John's voice carried a teasing tone as he capped the iodine and pressed the bandage onto his skin.

Cameron smirked a devilish smile and took the iodine from the floorboard and gently smoothed it across his back, "Sometimes you need to do things on your own." She set the bottle down and replaced the cap on top of it before ever so softly placing the bandage onto his shoulder.

"You confuse the hell out of me you know," John returned her smirk with a slight caress of her chin.

Her brow cinched as she asked, "How so?"

Seeing that he had upset her slightly, John tried to explain as best as he could, "Well, you tell me that the decision making is up to me alone when I ask you for something, but then when I say I can take care of something on my own you insist on helping me."

Cameron thought about what he said for a moment before replying, "The little things are meant to need help, large tactical decisions are yours alone because only you should make them."

"Well how am I supposed to know what to do all the time? I am not some kind of all knowing being you know," John snickered before settling his eyes back down onto her.

"I help you on the little things because they help you become a better person. Helping you become a better person means that in the future, you will make the big decision's correctly and by yourself," Cameron explained. "But I will always be there if you stumble and fall," she smiled back up to him before laying back against the seat. John stared at her for a few seconds before laying back down beside her.

Cameron seemed to fall asleep quickly because her eyes closed and a small smile crept across her lips before it seemed like every 'muscle' in her body relaxed. John too drifted off to sleep fairly quickly, both them them warming each other via body heat under the thermal blanket that he had draped over them. It wasn't long though before he woke up, and the time dictated that he put his plan into motion.

* * *

**Skynet Central, Colorado**

**January 7, 2014**

**12:08AM**

* * *

The artificial intelligence replayed the message again for the twenty-third time since its initial broadcast. It had become apparent that the young boy had returned to the base. Hacking the frequency of the AI known as John Henry had been very simple, especially considering they both thought in similar patterns, making the encryption that much more easy to crack. The information it had received from the one also made the task that much simpler. _Human's, so easily fooled._

Young Mr. Connor was proving to be quite the adversary indeed. His fellow commanding officers were easy to predict, and therefore didn't present much of a challenge at all. Even though the ultimate outcome of the war would no doubt be the complete destruction of the human race, Skynet still found it intriguing that a human could provide a fight against the super-intelligent computer system. The previous General had almost been handing his troops over to slaughter on a near daily basis, Connor would sit back and study things though, waiting for the appropriate moment to strike.

It was a sound strategy, and usually resulted in victory against an unsuspecting opponent, but Skynet would not be fooled, it knew exactly what John was doing. Even though the boy had told via the radio call that he would be organizing a plan of attack, he also mentioned that nobody else would be dying needlessly. This suggested a subversive fighting tactic, one which might prove effective if steps were not taken to prevent such a thing from happening.

Skynet brought up the available units in the area and gave them orders to close in on the base, but not to attack it just yet. If young mister Connor wanted to sit back and plan, Skynet would allow him the ability to. But as soon as the caravans began leaving the plant they would meet a quick and abrupt end at the hands of the new T-650 line.

The progress then began moving forward on the synthetic skin systems, something that Skynet took pride in. The new 650 units would come in two standards, a bleak and metallic skeleton for battlefield missions, and a skinned version for infiltration missions. The skin itself was something that was truly revolutionary that Skynet had engineered.

All of the failed experiments on the humans were something to be taken into account, but they nonetheless forced Skynet to discover its own means to carry out its missions. The removal of the circulatory system meant that the skin would be entirely artificial, and not living. A small price to pay, but right now the systems had been untested in the field and Skynet could only predict how it would perform.

Scanners revealed that the skin was truly visible as intended from a distance of no closer then ten feet. Surely the units would be able to enter bases and incapacitate them without getting within ten feet of a human being. If they didn't more revisions would be made and ultimately it would have to begin looking into synthetically living skin. Skynet brought up the systems of the first two T-650's and gave them their missions: Infiltrate Serrano Point, Kill John Connor.

The given time for them to arrive was estimated to be around forty-five minutes. It wasn't long to wait, and Skynet was almost certain that given the twenty-eight degree weather in the area outside the plant, nobody would be traveling anytime soon out at night. For now it waited for the cat and mouse game to take place, all John Connor would have to do was take the bait.

* * *

**Serrano Point, California**

**January 7, 2014**

**12:10AM**

* * *

The 132nd squadron was standing in the arrival bay of the plant but they couldn't find their target. Each person's head was shifting around trying to locate what they were searching for, and every person came up empty on their search. The Reese brothers, Jesse, Angela, Perry, and Martin all gave up their search and looked at the empty space on the loading bay where their van had been.

Angela broke away from the group and began looking over in other packs of vehicles and supplies, hoping to find the van hidden behind a hummer or something, but again her search turned up nothing. Everyone watched her slowly acknowledge the fact that they were indeed gone, nowhere to be found. _Damn him and his schemes! Dammit!_ Angela seethed her anger at John even though he wasn't in the room with them.

The Reese brothers looked sad to not see John and Cameron waiting for them by the van but the others looked hopefully optimistic. Martin stood next to his wife and young daughter and actually laughed when it set in that the two friends of his were gone. Perry eyed the man standing next to him and nodded with a slight smirk on his face

"We better get going to the briefing guys," Perry turned and face everyone else. "Maybe they can do something out there that we can't, for right now there isn't anything we can do about it though."

Angela broke her silence with, "And what is it we are supposed to do while the are out there? I don't like it, John going off on his own to do this...It's not safe!"

Perry turned to the woman, who was right, he had to give her that, "There isn't anything we can do about them now." His eyes shifted from Angela to Martin again, "Right now we just follow orders, understood?" Everyone nodded, although some begrudgingly, before turning and making their way into the base again, the loading bay doors closing slowly behind them.

* * *

To Be Continued...


	22. Chapter 22

Sorry for the delay in the chapter, had a bit of a dry spell in writing coupled with some personal stuff that kept it behind schedule.

* * *

**Chapter 22: Errors**

* * *

_ It all seemed so simple at the time._

_ I'd thought of a plan to kill Skynet, and with minimal loss, but to do it would take balls._

_ And pissing a bunch of people off in the process, but they didn't need to die for my cause._

_ Nobody ever needs to die, not the way I see it anyway._

_ I'd studied enough, learned pretty much all I was going to learn, but that didn't stop me from questioning myself._

_ "What if I messed up? What if everything went wrong?"_

_ After the first ten minutes out on the road I had pretty much had to convince myself that everything was going to work out._

_ That nothing was going to go wrong._

_ It couldn't go wrong, not with the stakes as high as they were._

_ The stakes were risky, but I had an ace in the hole._

_ And by God, it was about time to play it and stop dicking around like I had been doing for the past three years._

* * *

**Somewhere in Nevada**

**January 9, 2014**

**9:09AM**

* * *

"No, we have to get moving," John tried to get up but found his movements impeded by something he couldn't see. The smell of the room took his breath for a moment or two, the entire room smelled like...copper. His eyes tried to search for something to look at but failed, always going out of focus as soon as they caught sight of an object.

Cameron continued hovering over him worriedly, "No, John. We can't move with you like this." He could tell from her voice that something was up, but just _what_ he didn't know.

_ What could possibly be that bad? _John gritted his teeth as a numb kind of sensation passed from his torso and up to his head. It almost felt like every limb in his body had been asleep and had woken up all at once, but that wasn't what was going on. _It couldn't be..._

John shot her blurry image a dirty look before asking, "Cam, what the hell happened?" His tone carried an angry rage that was slowly building up inside of him, if she didn't respond this time he was nearly tempted to electrocute her.

She looked down at his torso again before laying a hand softly above his heart, "You don't remember?" John shook his head slowly to signal that he didn't. Cameron took a slow breath before locking her eyes with his, "It all started yesterday morning..."

* * *

**Wellington, Nevada**

**January 8, 2014**

**8:24AM**

* * *

The landscape was flying by as they continued hurtling across the vast land and out into the wilderness of Nevada. Wilderness wasn't really an appropriate word for Nevada, big ass desert was though, and at least the area they were driving around in had the pleasantry of an occasional rock to stare at before it zoomed past the windows of the van. Cameron kept the suburban on a steady course across the barren land, while John propped his feet up on the dash and watched blank nothingness roll by them for hours upon hours.

It had been forever since they had spoken to one another, and John knew why. Cameron hadn't exactly been thrilled by John having a plan, carrying out that plan, and not telling her anything about it at all. In his mind though, this was something that he needed to do and he was going to see through. He remembered their morning conversation all too well to forget it.

"We are headed to Colorado," John had said when she finally woke up in the back of the barreling van. For the past hour or so he had kept the van on a steady course to his target, never falling below seventy-miles-per-hour.

"What is in Colorado?" Cameron asked, half in a daze from her systems still booting back up to maximum efficiency. To anyone that didn't know what she was, it would almost look like she was suffering from a hangover. She clutched her head before looking at the still healing damage on her hand.

"Something I have to take care of, just trust me," John gripped the steering wheel tighter and kept the van on its frantic pace towards the East of the continent. _Don't break down and tell her, don't break down and tell her, don't break down and tell her..._

"You don't feel comfortable enough to tell me do you?" Cameron crawled over the second-row of seats before sitting down in the passenger seat beside John, "I understand."

"It's not that I don't trust you, Cam," John looked over at her sorrowfully, "I just...need to do this."

Now that he thought about it, John was happy that he didn't tell her why he was headed into Colorado. The plan was cooking in his brain ever since they had arrived on shore after Bryant exiled him to Australia, or rather he tried to exile him. Both John and Bryant knew that he would never confine himself to stay away from the forefront for very long.

Still, the uneasiness of Cameron made him regret the decision every mile that ticked by on the odometer. A thick silence and tension fell upon the van as John kept it on their destination. Finally, after a few hours of silence he finally spoke to his companion sitting in the driver seat.

"Hey, what's on your mind," John asked softly.

Cameron paid him no attention as the van continued hurtling down the sandy dune and leveled out onto the floor of the desert. Her eyes were studying the horizon and after a few moments silence she finally gave in and appeased him, "About what?" Her tone was cold, and laced with sarcasm.

"Well, anything I guess," John smirked back at her. He was glad to see that he could still get through to her sometimes, even when she didn't want him to.

"I am wondering, why we aren't traveling on a highway...ugh," a bump in the terrain caused both of them to bounce in the seats as they went airborne for a moment before crashing back down onto the ground, "instead of driving through a desert with only a half tank of gas left."

John smiled before breaking open a granola bar from his pack. He was about to bite into it before he noticed what flavor it was, vanilla. _Dunno if she likes this kind or not, but what the hell,_ John thought as he broke off half of the bar and handed it to Cameron.

Now normally, Cameron didn't like being interrupted while in a vehicle at all. Most of the time, even when she wasn't driving, she found the task was very straining on her systems, but now in the post-apocalyptic world there wasn't much to pay attention to other then the occasional rock or cactus. But John's offering had spurred her interest and now she turned her eyes from the desert and laid them on the granola bar as if it were made entirely of chocolate.

"Thank you," she smiled and stuffed the hole thing in her mouth in one bite. Cameron's jaw crunched up the dry bar with little problem before she asked for a sip of water from John's canteen.

John chuckled to himself and ate his own portion of breakfast before they saw the steam rolling out from under the hood of the van. "Ah, shit," John sighed before he pulled the vehicle over to a stop.

The vehicle wheezed to a stop and began billowing out large amounts of steam from under the hood. _Damn, radiator's gone more then likely..._

It didn't take long once he popped the hood for John to figure out what the problem was, the radiator was completely shot. With nothing to fix it with other then gauze and bandages, they had to start walking to the nearest town, which thankfully according to Cameron was only about three miles north of them. Begrudgingly, John set off with her in the direction of the town while he silently asked himself, _If the desert is so damn barren, and its so freaking cold outside. Why the hell am I exhausted?_

"So uh, how do you know where this town is?" John asked after the first half mile. In actuality he was curious, she wasn't able to hookup with satellites anymore, and doubted she even remembered how to in the first place.

"A voice in my head," Cameron said rather flatly, her eyes were studying the horizon of the sand in front of them. She didn't know herself, but a voice in her head had indeed been giving her directions on where to go.

"A voice in your head?" John asked while repeating her statement, only this time Cameron only nodded in reply. He shrugged and kept on following her, _what's next? A visit to six flags or a water park?_

They continued on their journey until at last they began to see the remnants of a city on the horizon. From the looks of it, it was a small town that had mainly been destroyed by Skynet after the initial bomb assault. Wellington was a very small town indeed, only about a mile or so across in every direction.

The two friends continued into the edge of the town and began looking around for water, John having polished off the rest of their supply about a half mile back. His initial observation of the town was correct in every degree imaginable. The town only had probably ten or so streets, and most of it were apartments and houses. Like any town, the shopping area's and places of business were situated towards the center road or main street. It was here that he and Cameron fount the doctors office, and John walked inside of a small clothing store.

John found a shoulder sling for his arm after he walked down enough aisles to find one. His wound wasn't hurting too badly, but at times his arm was starting to go numb which wasn't a good sign of circulation. The only bad thing about the sling was it pretty much made his arm useless when trying to shoot something, since he was right handed. Luckily his mother had drilled ambidextrous shooting into his brain before he was five-years-old.

"Hey," John called over to Cameron from across the street where she was stalking the aisles of the local health clinic, "what did you find?"

Cameron didn't answer him immediately, still partially holding a grudge for being left in the dark about their current situation, only after she walked across the road and stood next to him with the small shopping basket did she respond, "Mostly items that will be unusable for you."

John quirked an eyebrow over at the girl and peeked inside the cart, naming the contents out for her to hear, "Peroxide, Iodine, bandages of various sizes." John did a little shuffling of the contents before naming off more things, "Bubble gum, morphine, hemostats, gauze...all of this stuff looks pretty normal Cam." His tone sounded as if it were full of sarcasm to her.

She considered a witty comeback for a moment before speaking, "That is because all of this," Cameron motioned down at the basket full of goods, "are things that can be used by you."

John let out a laugh this time, "And what pray-tell was in the store that I couldn't use."

"Contraceptives," Cameron replied with a sly grin, and John's cheeks turned a deep red before he started staring at the floor.

"How many could they honestly have in there?" John retorted with a grin of his own. _Easy John, start singing the national anthem if you have to..._

Cameron thought about it for a moment then responded with, "Almost sixty percent of the buildings contents were stocked with various means of contraception."

"Oh...Come on, lets uh...lets go," John said before turning and exiting the store. Right now they needed a vehicle that could take them to Colorado, and he was determined to find one.

As usual, the most reliable place to find such a vehicle was in a fast food vicinity, and it didn't take them long to find one at all. Only a block or so north of where the clothing store had been was a local diner filled with various models of automobiles. The problem though was finding one with enough gas in it to make it to John's destination. Unfortunately the lack of electricity in the area had pretty much guaranteed that finding gas easily was not an option and made pumping it from a store impossible.

"Shit, looks like we're gonna spend an hour or two siphoning gas into some extra cans," John said when he eyed the gas needle on the dash of the Ford pickup.

Cameron looked at him as he said it and hurriedly replied with, "Not it." She hopped down out of the pickup truck's passenger seat and started looking around in the bed of the truck for something to store the gas in, as well as a siphon.

John hopped out of the driver seat with a determined look on his face, "Oh no, come on! I did it last time."

Cameron could see the pout on his face that the thought of having to siphon gasoline out of unused cars made him unhappy, and the thought herself doing it made her 'cringe'. She had been tricked into doing it once though, and she swore to herself that never again would she be used as a tool to siphon gas out of car tanks. The very thought of even having to do such a thing was almost utterly repulsive to start with.

"I don't like the taste of the gasoline, it tastes funny," Cameron said, and for the first time in forever, she donned her 'scary robot face'.

John scoffed and looked over at her with a stunned face, "Awe come on, I don't like it either." He sincerely hoped that she would relent and do the task, it was...unpleasant to even think about doing it.

"That is why I brought you the bubble gum from the store," Cameron smiled at him and held up the pack of juicy fruit for him to see.

_ Great,_ John thought, _three year old stale gum to wash gasoline out of my mouth. I hope you're happy!_ He grunted then grabbed the empty five gallon plastic bottle and started walking amongst vehicles to fill the tank of the truck up. Cameron watched him while she sat on the tailgate, legs crossed, and picking at dirt from under her nails.

After about thirty minutes of three trips of gas guzzling, John had filled the tank of the truck up, now he only needed to fill the jug up one more time for a spare bit, _ugh_. John's shoulders slouched while he made one more trip to siphon the gas from the last remaining vehicle in the parking lot. He didn't even need to look up and Cameron in hopes that she would show him mercy, there would be no mercy...

He set the container down on the ground and keeled down on his knees for better access. _Okay, just like last time. Stick the hose down the fuel tank,_ the hose snaked its way down into the gas tank of the vehicle parked next to him. _Now, to suck,_ John tried not to heave in too much air because the gas would come flooding out and into his lungs, but he became distracted.

On the tailgate of the truck was Cameron, sitting down and messing with her nails in a very human fashion, but that wasn't what struck John as odd. What struck him as strange was the way the Earth seemed to be slightly vibrating every few seconds, and how the antennae on the truck was shaking back and forth by the slightest movement. It was then that he heard the metallic 'thumps' in the distance, the kind of thumps made by a bi-pedal terminator. Gasoline hit his mouth and he spit it out on to the ground and turned to face his companion.

"Cameron," John tried to hiss and whisper at the same time. He was rewarded for his efforts when she turned her head and acknowledged him with a raised eyebrow and a frown.

"T-500," John barely let the words escape his lips before Cameron bounded off of the truck and shoved him up onto his feet. She practically dragged him back to the truck and threw him under it.

"Be quiet if you want to live," She looked down at him before getting in the bed of the truck and laying down flat on the metal.

John tried to control his pounding heartbeat and increased breathing but it wasn't that simple. A lifetime of being hunted by machines had brought him an iota of preparedness but only a small amount. He was still human after all, they were allowed to be scared sometimes.

The terminator came within twenty or so feet of their position before it turned and began patrolling in the south direction. John breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the metallic clanks start growing quieter in his ears. He remained under the truck but John could hear Cameron start to maneuver herself over the side of the truck and her feet came crashing down onto the pavement, making small indention's as they connected.

John saw her hand appear in front of his face and she hauled him up when he grasped it. He looked around but couldn't see the metal soldier anywhere. Cameron looked at him with concern as John seemed to enjoy escaping the patrol of the machine.

"Come on, lets get going," John didn't give it a second thought and started walking around the truck to the drivers side door. When he arrived at the door though, he saw the most peculiar of sights.

Cameron still stood outside the passenger door, transfixed on the handle as if it were the most complex thing she had ever seen before. John knew what that look meant, another freeze up in her logic systems. It had only happened twice before but every time it started happening, he always knew what it meant. He closed the door to the truck and walked around in front of her slowly, her eyes and body remained motionless when he waved a hand in front of her face.

"Cam," John's tone reflected the worry and fear in his body.

Her body remained solid like a statuesque figure before a slight twitch in what should have been a jaw muscle gave John a glimmer of hope. Very slowly, as if rigged up to a actuating piston, Cameron's mouth opened and a distorted mechanical voice began emanating from her vocal processor, "John Connor, Skynet has breached all safety encryption frequencies worldwide. Communication is no longer safe for us now. I am sorry for communicating with you this way but it is the only way I can. The loss of my soldiers along with the destruction of the factories has crumbled out strength in the Eastern parts of the globe. Because of this, I am resigning from command until I am able to help further. I am of no further use to anyone without help."

John tried to protest when the voice died out but it never came back, and neither did Cameron's consciousness. She remained as motionless and still as a slab of stone, only her hair moved when caressed by the gentle breeze of the wind. He had tried to wake her up of course, but it was pointless, it looked like she was gone this time. At least until he managed to fix her chip...He started heaving her body up into the truck before reclining the seat back to lay her down in it.

Scrambling around to the other side of the vehicle, John jumped up into the rear of the cab and started shuffling through the bags of stuff left over from Danny Dyson's room in Serrano Point. Finally he had all of the equipment out on the seat with him and he began plugging in all of the electronics into the laptop seated on Cameron's chest.

_Damn, only one spare battery, I gotta make this quick,_ John told himself as he switched open the blade on the knife in his pockets. His hands hovered over the left portion of her skull for a moment, somehow he couldn't start the incision. After a few slow breaths he found something that helped him relax, closing her eyes which had been staring at him the entire time.

With as much that could be given, he laid the edge of the blade against Cameron's scalp and began cutting in a circular motion. Once the circle was completed he removed the blade and laid it on the cushioned interior seat of the cab. _Screwdriver comes next, _John told himself as he reached for the flat-head.

Unlike her previous body, which simply needed a slight pressure applied to remove the outer covering, this new version was more similar to Uncle Bob. The outer plate of the skull had to be removed via two locking cylinder screws, both of which tested John's strength when he tried to remove them. _Great Cam, you're,_ he grunted from the resistance of the bolts, _going to give me a hernia!_

Finally though, he did indeed have the two screws removed, and the shock damping assembly came next. A gentle grasp of the needle nose pliers, and a twist of his wrist led John to being face to face with Cameron's chip. It was just like her remembered it, the brown boxes infused with the small motherboard that ran along the center.

Another pull of the pliers and the damping assembly along with Cameron's chip were removed from the cranium of the girl before him. John could see the small clip on the base of the damping assembly which fastened the chip to the cylindrical piece of metal. With the slightest ease possible, John pinched the clip with his index finger and thumb to release the chip from the metal holder, and held it gently in his hands. _This is...her._

* * *

To Be Continued...


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23: Outputs**

* * *

_ Input and output_

_ Simple concept right? Put something into something and get a result._

_ But therein lies the problem, you can't always anticipate what is going to come out._

_ You can hope..._

_ You can have faith..._

_ But the only way you will ever know how it ends is to put in the effort needed to see the result..._

* * *

**Serrano Point, California**

**January 8, 2010**

**1:12PM**

* * *

Perry massaged his bald scalp once more before leaning over the table in frustration and replying to the intercom, "Sir, Connor is nowhere to be found. Nobody knows where he is, and right now I am in command until he returns."

"How can you even conceive giving that runt control of the military again, Perry? He murdered your commanding officer!" The voice crackled back through the electronic piece of equipment.

The large black man let out a long and slow breath of air before responding, "With all do respect sir, I'm following the orders of my current CO. If you don't like it, you are free to take it up with the General when he returns."

The electronic equipment died out while Jesse turned from the radio com center, "They've shut down, sir. No more incoming signals from their position."

Perry nodded over at the young radar tech before Angela spoke up, "That's the thing though Perry, where _the hell_ is Connor? And why the hell did he abandon us?"

The commander stood upright and gave a quick look over the people in the room. Everyone looked like they were on a mix of either passing out from exhaustion or on the edge of an intense thrill-ride, especially the two Reese brothers.

"I don't know Vasquez," replied Perry. "But I was given orders by Connor to follow until he gets back, and right now that is exactly what I am doing."

Angela nodded at her superior officer before staring at an empty spot on the table again. She didn't like the General being out there practically alone, without any backup in case things got tense. It was a foolish move, but the only thing that pissed her off more then his disappearance was the lack of a motive for leaving in the first place. For all she knew, Connor just wanted to go on a vacation.

"Dismissed," Perry said with a resoundingly commanding tone, "Kyle, I need to speak with you privately." The young Reese nodded and shot his brother a weary eye while everyone else filed out of the room. "That means you too, Flores. I need to speak with Kyle in private."

The girl scoffed but shut down her equipment as ordered, gathered her personal effects from the desk, and exited the room just like everyone else. Kyle watched her go, but Perry kept his eyes on the young man standing in front of him. Perry looked at him with a poker face worthy of a champion. On the outside there was about as much emotion as one could expect to find on a rock, but inside he was curious and intrigued that Connor would pick this boy to carry out the mission he was about to assign him. He was only eleven years old after all.

Kyle turned and looked up at the towering man in front of him, but showed no apprehension what-so-ever. As far as Kyle was concerned, the man standing in front of him was someone that had always had his back, and never lead him the wrong way. Because of those reasons, and the fact that he despised Skynet, were enough reasons for Kyle never to show doubt in the General.

"Connor left you something in your bunker, says you are to study it intensely, and never let if leave your side. One day, Connor says it will all become clear to you why this is necessary," Perry studied the young man in front of him carefully, hoping that his mind could keep up with the information being fed to him. Perry was pleased when Kyle nodded in agreement.

"Good, you're dismissed then," Perry smiled at the eleven-year-old and watched him turn to leave the room, stopping him before he got to the door, "Oh and send Bedell in here will you, I need to go over a few things with him."

"Yes, sir!" Kyle said, then snapped Perry a salute before opening the door and leaving the man alone in the room. Most of the people in the plant were in the main hall eating their lunch when Kyle reached the bottom step on the staircase. He found Jesse and Derek waiting for him at a table near the end of the stairs.

Both of the two love-birds were clinging onto each other, much to Kyle's annoyance, enough to make him want to roll his eyes and puke. Lately both of them had taken to being all over each other whenever they could get free time. Kyle couldn't see why, whenever Jesse spoke to his older brother she seemed to hate him with the passion of a thousand suns. _I guess opposites really do attract._

The only thing that pried Derek's face off of the scathing Australian was Kyle's approach, otherwise he was sure they would remain that way until they were called back on duty, "Hey Kyle, we saved a meal for you. Beef stew today man, and its pretty damn good today."

"Thanks bro, I think I'm gonna eat it in the room, not feeling too good this afternoon," Kyle responded to his older brother.

Derek looked up at Kyle again from the table as his younger brother took the meal on the table and began walking towards the basement quarters, "You alright man?"

Kyle looked over his shoulder but kept on walking, "Yea, just need to lay down for a few minutes man." And with that he kept on trucking down the basement level stairs, finally making his way to his shared room with Derek.

When he opened the door, he saw something very small sitting on his pillow which hadn't been there when he left this morning. It looked like a small white piece of paper, about three-inches square. Kyle shot a surprised look outside in the hallway before seeing nobody there, he shut the door next and locked it hurriedly.

His feet carried him quickly over to the bed and his trembling fingers grasped for the alien material on his pillow. It wasn't a piece of paper like he thought, at least not entirely. Whatever it was, was a package inside of a package.

On the outside was a piece of notebook paper with a a few scrawled letters on it reading:

Take care of this and study it hard, one day the future will depend on you and her.

His eyes flew over the words many times before Kyle raised an eyebrow and placed the piece of paper down on the bed. Next he looked at the other denser piece of paper that had been wrapped up inside of the notebook paper. Kyle hadn't seen one in forever, but it was a photograph.

It showed a woman, really young and only a few years older then himself, sitting in a vehicle of some kind with a dog. Both the woman and the dog were staring off out of the focus of the camera, out into the distance in front of them. The features of her face looked sad, slightly depressed at something, but he couldn't tell from the picture. There were no words written on the front or back of the photograph, only the picture to describe Kyle's mission. After twenty or so minutes of studying it only to fail in frustration, Kyle put it in the chest pocket on his coat and collapsed down onto the bed, mushing the beef stew all over his pants.

"Shit," he grunted before hauling himself off of the bed and watching the stew roll down onto the floor. _Why is it always me?_

* * *

Perry sat alone in the control room of the power plant at the head of the table. Sweat was beginning to bead up on his brow and run down his face as he read the letter left for him by John. His eyes scanned line after line hoping they would change after the thousandth time of reading them, but they didn't.

_Of all the things Connor could be doing, this? This is what __he wants to do? It's impossible, given the right amount of troops theoretically it could be done but even then you'd need an army of people._ Perry arrived at the end of the letter right when Martin Bedell entered the room.

"You called for me, sir?" Martin asked his superior officer seated at the table.

Perry didn't look at the man who entered the room, only handed him the letter while continuing to stare at the table, "Take a look at this."

Martin shot his superior officer a questionable look before taking the piece of paper from his hands and giving it a look-over. What was scribbled on the pages were pure insanity, it couldn't be done, not with the force of ten-thousand could it be done. "Sir, is this what Connor wants us to do?" Perry gave a solemn nod and leaned back in his chair, but never fully relaxed.

Martin's eyes once again ran over the page, making sure he didn't miss anything, "He wants us to send a force towards Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco; take those forces and hole them up there while attacking every Skynet unit in the area. Sir...it's suicide...it's"

His words were cut off by Perry, "It's an order, soldier. And like it or not, we're going to follow it." Perry finally turned his eyes from the table in front of him and looked up at Martin with an understandably aggravated look. "It's a decoy plan, but for what...I don't know."

* * *

**Somewhere In Nevada**

**January 8, 2014**

**1:21PM**

* * *

_Easy does it, easy does it John..._He'd held Cameron's...brain in his hands before, but he was always careful to treat it as if the chip were a piece of glass. The chip finally seated itself on the plug-in of Danny Dyson's and John opened the laptop screen to find Cameron already powering up and running the systems on the LCD interface.

"Okay, lets see how this works," John said, but the files began moving around before he even began typing on the computer. _She's fixing...herself?_

John didn't know what to make of the situation but nevertheless things still began moving by at lightening speed until she pulled up the indexing file for what he guessed was her structural core programming. Numbers and alien symbols flew across the screen at a dizzying pace before they began slowing down, and he saw the glitching that was taking place there.

His brow cinched as he squinted at the screen to see the corrupt frequencies of the AI logic core that was Cameron. "Okay...um...here goes nothing," John started to move his hands toward the keyboard before the screen on the laptop flickered again and went black.

He panicked for a minute before realizing that the hardware and laptop were still running. John breathed a sigh of relief before looking back at the screen as letters began writing themselves in a small green command-like text prompt across the blank screen.

_Do you trust me, John?_

"Yes," John replied, looking nervously at Cameron's chip to the side of the laptop.

_Please write this down and remember it:_

((+ 4 4) = 8 8)  
(( + 10 12 14 16 18 20) = 110 10)

Paridigm Protocols -  
(1800 + 1800 + 180 + 18) – (10000 + 1000 + 50 + 10)  
(( - 1 (+ 18000 1800 180 18) (+10000 1000 100 10) ) = 8888)  
((append '(Mission) ' (John Connor) ) = (Mission John Connor) 12  
( ' (John Connor) = (John Connor) )

( :section "2.8 Core")

( ( setf k ' (Protocols Diagnostics) ) 20)

( ( first k) )

( (second k) )

( (third k) )

( (fourth k) )

( (length k) )

( :section "2.10 Functions")

( (skin temperature k) = Fahrenheit 96)

( (breathing) ' (autonomous 15bpm) = 15bpm)

( (crash dump) ) ' (dump on exec command) ) = Exec Command)

k

( (debug :gps) )

( (link command) + (2.918048329 + 82891305.38) = Boot .sys )

_Do you have all of that, John?_

John was busy furiously writing down all of the information she had been typing away and didn't look up at the screen. Cameron forced a POST beep from the laptop speakers to get his attention, making him look up at the screen in front of him.

"Yes, I got it," John replied and finished writing off the final bits of coding.

_Thank you, please change the laptop battery, it is about to die. Then type all of the coding into the input channel I bring up upon reboot. Please be precise, any in-corrections will result in system core damage._

He lost his breath for a moment before muttering a quiet, "I understand." John reached down and disconnected the old laptop battery and replaced it with the new one. All of the equipment to the right of the laptop died as the energy source faded away, the silent fading of the hum of equipment was like a death knell to his ears.

_Moment of truth,_ he told himself while pressing the power button on the laptop. It was the fastest boot up in human history for a computer, before his finger had even left the power button Cameron had booted up the entire system to running capacity again. And like she had said, there was an input command box waiting for the code she had given him. _Now or never,_ John sighed and began typing in the code written down on the piece of paper beside him.

After a few minutes of typing, and making sure to triple check for any errors at all, he finally closed his eyes and hit the Enter key. The processor that Cameron's chip was plugged into began whirring even louder as it began executing the commands and changing elements of the most sophisticated super-computer on Earth.

The whirring continued for a few more seconds until he heard another beep from the computer, it sounded like a signal of some kind. John recognized the beeps as a sort of Morse code once they started extending themselves out slightly, which translated to a message of roughly, "Everything is okay now."

John nodded at the screen, doubting that Cameron could even tell if he was, and removed the chip from the computer terminal just as the second laptop battery died. _I guess the stress and power zaps them like crazy,_ John thought as he looked down at the chip in his hand. _Now or never,_ he told himself as he leaned forward and reinserted the chip carefully.

Next came the shock-damping assembly, which snapped down onto the chip and secured itself in place. The last piece, the outer port cover, was applied next while John gritted his teeth attempting to tighten the screws back to their normal intense settings. It was done, and he knew it, now he only had to wait for her to reboot.

_One-hundred-twenty-seconds_, John told himself. He eyed the flap of skin still folded back and exposing the metal cranium of Cameron's skull, and he carefully pressed it back down with his palm. Little to no blood matted her hair, it looked like she had never even been cut in the first place. Her face remained serene and blank as John mentally passed the one-hundred-twenty-second mark.

Just as he began panicking her head snapped from being in a position facing him, to looking up at the truck ceiling. Cameron's eyes opened and began studying everything around her before turning back to John, "Hello John, it's been awhile."

"What do you mean?" John asked curiously. _It couldn't have been more then...fifteen minutes since she froze up. What does she mean 'its been awhile'._

"When the mountain collapsed down onto me, I wasn't damaged, but an electrical shock to my CPU caused programming malfunctions. I haven't truly been myself until now," Cameron pushed herself up onto her elbows and continued looking at the young man crouched in the back seat.

"So what all's changed?" John asked worriedly. If he had caused something to irrevocably change what or who she was, he wouldn't ever forgive himself.

"Nothing, I remember everything that has happened since. Though I did have you sever the com-interlink between myself and John Henry," she smiled at him before turning and raising the seat up from its reclined position.

John gave her and 'oh' face and climbed out of the rear of the truck to join her in the front of the vehicle. As he sat down in the driver's seat he looked over at her again, "Why did you want that gone? He's annoying as hell but he's still an ally."

Cameron looked over at John before fastening her seat-belt around her waist, "My head is crowded, it is confusing enough for one person to be in there." John continued looking at her incredulously before she added on, "I needed clarity and privacy."

"So you're good now?" John repeated the words that she had told him once before on his birthday a few years prior.

She nodded once and smiled at him with her trademark smirk, "I'm all good now. We should get going." And with that, Cameron turned to look out of the window on her side of the truck.

John snickered at her before he cranked the vehicle and shifted the transmission into reverse to back out of the parking space. Once out on the road, his doubts were laid to rest as Cameron rolled down the window, hung her bare feet out of it, and began humming along to a Deadmau5 track. _Yea, _John thought, _she's definitely back._ He looked over at her for a moment or two, seeing how happy she looked as the wind flew through her toes. Her voice raised itself by an octave as she continued miming along with the track in her head, _in all the annoying reverie as well._

* * *

A few hours had passed when he finally built up the courage enough to ask her something that had been burning away inside his mind ever since John Henry had rebuilt her. He cleared his throat a little, enough for her to hear him over her incessant singing, "Hey, um...How is it that you sleep now?"

Cameron stopped singing along to one of her favorite Deadmau5 tracks immediately and turned towards John, her toes still wiggling in the breeze outside. "Cache dumping," she said simply.

"Cache dumping?" John repeated, not understanding what she meant by the simplistic answer.

A lock of hair blew up in front of her eyes, and it impeded her view of John. With slight annoyance at the unruly hair, Cameron tucked it behind her left ear and explained, "I began nearing my system capacity. I can either dump my cache to make more room, or go into standby mode for compression."

"So what happens if you actually run out of room after a compression," John asked, still leaving his eyes on the passing landscape outside them.

Cameron, however, never took her eyes off of John, "Then I can't retain anymore information. I'd be full." Her eyes finally left John and began humming along to Deadmau5 again as she started looking at her toes.

"You'd be full...of information? How much information do you have?" John asked, this time looking at the girl next to him.

She turned her brown eyes and locked them onto him, "I have information on everything I need."

"Oh so you're back to subverting conversations," John asked teasingly.

"The information that takes up my internal space is made up almost entirely upon the complexities of human emotions and understandings of human nature," Cameron replied with a calm tone, looking back at her feet again out of the window.

"And you won't cache dump that in case you need the space for something more important?" John replied, more seriously now that she had given him an actual answer.

"There is nothing more important," Cameron ended the conversation with finality in her tone as she again began humming along to her favorite song. John, meanwhile, smiled at her before turning his eyes back on the road.

"I have a question for you, John," Cameron's voice broke the silence after about three play-throughs of her song. He didn't turn his head to acknowledge her, he only replied with a simple nod and raising of his eyebrows.

"Why are we headed to Colorado?" The question set John on edge, _how much does she know? Has she figured anything out? What is going to happen when she does?_

John opened his mouth to respond but something prevented him from speaking. A death grip on his jacket sleeve pulled him from the seat he was sitting in and into the passenger seat with Cameron. He looked over at her questionably before seeing what the problem was, up in the air in front of them was an aerial HK training its plasma weapon directly on the hood of the vehicle.

"Hold on," Cameron said as she opened the door and flung both of their bodies out of the speeding pickup truck. They rolled over each other a dozen times before coming to a stop in the desert sand while the truck kept barreling towards the town in front of them.

The HK opened fire and blew up the truck with two blasts, sending a large fire ball into the air. It hovered about forty feet off the ground before turning and heading for the two survivors of the attack. Cameron gripped his wrist tightly, but not enough to cause immediate damage, "We have to move."

They both took off towards the town about a hundred feet in front of them. Cameron snatched John up off of the ground after the first ten or twenty feet and began running faster than any human could possibly ever run. The cool air against his face forced him to close his eyes, but John knew that she would get them both to safety by any means necessary.

After bout twenty seconds of running they had passed under the aerial machine which had to bank around to begin its approach again while the two escapee's began finding cover in the ruined city. The HK zoomed over the airspace over their cover for a moment or two before swiveling around and training its guns on another possible target area.

"Don't make a sound or move," Cameron whispered in his ear, her head pressed up against his almost painfully close. They had found cover under a collapsed wall that had fallen down onto a row of parked vehicles. Right now they were under the wall, and sandwiched between a Toyota Echo and a small smart car.

"I won't if you don't," John chuckled, but soon he regretted ever opening his mouth. The engines of the HK blew up dust as it heard him speaking and began hovering dangerously low over their position. The dust began billowing under the wall and into John's nasal cavity, causing him to sneeze before Cameron could move her hand up to stop him.

The aerial HK spun around in mid-air and fired at a relatively close location to where they were hiding, and where it believed they were hiding. Rubble began breaking over them as Cameron rolled over most of John's body to shield him from the incoming debris, but she was too late. A chunk of rubble that had a twisted and rusty portion of re-bar protruding from it came crashing down on an exposed part of John's chest, puncturing the meaty area near his right kidney.

Cameron already had her hand above his mouth to keep him from screaming out in pain as the HK fired again, about twenty feet away from their location before turning and exiting over the horizon of the city. Her eyes followed the machine over the buildings before she turned down and lifted the concrete off of John's chest with one hand.

Scanners began running diagnostics of his vitals as well as the blood loss that was happening. John was gasping for air as the taste of copper began accumulating in the back of his throat.

The scans finished as Cameron turned to look at him, "I'm sorry about this John, but you need to go to sleep right now." Cameron applied pressure to a point on his neck area, causing him to pass out within three seconds. His heart rate slowed and stabilized, causing the blood loss to also decline, but it was still happening at a quick pace. Luckily there was only an entrance wound, and not an exit wound. That made her job that much easier, only one hole to seal up.

"You'll thank me later," Cameron told the sleeping John as she pushed the concrete above them away and sat next to him. Her hands flew to his jacket pockets where he kept his knife and retrieved it. Flicking the blade open, she lifted her shirt up and cut a piece of flesh from her own torso, a piece big enough to fill the one in John's chest.

After it was free from her body, she pressed it into the wound of John's and watched as the blood flow slowly ground to a halt after a minute or two. It was a little known fact, that as far as Cameron knew, had never been tested fully before. Terminators could receive tissue donations from humans, so logic would assume that the same would take place from Terminator to human. For right now she waited and watched as the piece of flesh slowly started grafting itself to John's flesh.

* * *

**Somewhere in Nevada**

**January 9, 2014**

**9:09AM**

* * *

"No, we have to get moving," John tried to get up but found his movements impeded by something he couldn't see. The smell of the room took his breath for a moment or two, the entire room smelled like...copper. His eyes tried to search for something to look at but failed, always going out of focus as soon as they caught sight of an object.

Cameron continued hovering over him worriedly, "No, John. We can't move with you like this." He could tell from her voice that something was up, but just _what_ he didn't know.

_ What could possibly be that bad? _John gritted his teeth as a numb kind of sensation passed from his torso and up to his head. It almost felt like every limb in his body had been asleep and had woken up all at once, but that wasn't what was going on. _It couldn't be..._

John shot her blurry image a dirty look before asking, "Cam, what the hell happened?" His tone carried an angry rage that was slowly building up inside of him, if she didn't respond this time he was nearly tempted to electrocute her.

She looked down at his torso again before laying a hand softly above his heart, "You don't remember?" John shook his head slowly to signal that he didn't. Cameron took a slow breath before locking her eyes with his, "It all started yesterday morning..."

* * *

"So that's everything that happened huh?" John looked up at Cameron for assurance, and she nodded in return. "Then how did I get in this room?" John asked.

"I carried you after most of the blood loss stopped. Speaking of which, we can't move yet," Cameron replied to John, and watched as his brow cinched at her suggestion of them not moving.

"Why aren't we moving," John asked.

"The blood loss, you won't be back to normal levels until at least twenty days. Though you will be able to move after tomorrow," Cameron stated. Her eyes watched him slowly, knowing and hoping that he would see the reason in her tone with him.

Much to her relief he did, because he responded with a lighthearted, "Alright Cam, one day. But after that we're getting our asses back on the road understand?" Cameron smiled down at him while squeezing his hand as John drifted back off to sleep.

* * *

The AI programming code was used from a book found online via Google (though I changed a little to be accurate to the storyline)

Norvig, Peter._ Paradigms of AI Programming_, 1991-1996. Examples .lysp. 6-19-2012, 5:31PM EST.

To Be Continued...


	24. Chapter 24

****Most of this chapter takes place during a dream, so the constantly changing scenery and characters is a reflection of that. Sorry for any inevitable confusion :)

* * *

**Chapter 24: Dreams**

* * *

_ Dreaming men are haunted men – Stephen Vincent Benet_

_ Those words were true. Try as we might, we all need sleep._

_ A time when control ceases and the subconscious takes over._

_ It's a time when most of us are at our most vulnerable, and for people like me that means a living hell every time you close your eyes._

_ It was a little known secret that I only told Cameron once before, even though I guess it wasn't truly me that told her._

_ My future self had began telling resistance fighters to look out for extra supplies of morphine or any other sedative._

_ I was stockpiling drugs for myself to help me sleep, also because they interfere with REM sleep._

_ No REM sleep meant no sleeping._

_ I was starting to understand now why I was doing that in the future._

_ If you can't find peace when you sleep, whats the point of living?_

* * *

**Somewhere in Nevada**

**January 10, 2014**

**4:18AM**

* * *

"Mmmph...mmmmmph," John mumbled in his sleep while Cameron looked at him from the floor. Her head tilted in curiosity while he continued to talk deliriously in his sleep. _John should be rested by dawn, soon we can continue to our destination._

She continued looking at him while monitoring the audio frequencies of everything outside. An incoming patrol of anything would be picked up by her sensors, that is something Skynet never worried about; the noise that its machines made while closing in on their target.

The small room was holding up very well for the time being. It was a small office complex and John was laying inside a long-abandoned cubicle of some man named Larry Jenson. The name was irrelevant, he was probably dead, but Cameron cached it just in case it was needed in the future. _He may be a survivor nearby, and a potential ally. If acquaintances have not been made in twenty-four hours, a partial cache dump will be done for the name._

* * *

"John...John," a voice was calling him from somewhere, but he couldn't quite make out what or where. All he knew was it sounded familiar...strongly familiar. John tried to look around the vicinity but his eyes wouldn't part ways enough for him to see. _Just five...more..._ John drifted off to sleep before he could tell himself the rest of the sentence.

"JOHN CONNOR!" That time he knew who the voice belonged to, and he knew that if his ass wasn't out of the bed in two seconds that he was going to be in for one hell of a bad day. His mom was funny that way, cross her and you were in for it. True words for anyone, especially her son John.

"I'm up, I'M UP!" he replied while still keeping his eyes closed. John took in a refreshing lung full of air before he could finally at last open his eyes. _Ugh, what do you want?_ His mind asked very sarcastically.

"Good, pancakes are getting cold. If you don't hurry up Cameron's going to eat yours," Sarah said before turning from the doorway of John's bedroom and heading back towards the kitchen. She knew John, he hated her pancakes, but one thing he hated more then eating them was going hungry.

Her footsteps were soft and padded to his ears and that let him know everything was okay, wherever they were it told John that they were in a safe place for now. His mom never took off her shoes unless they were either; a – safe, or b-about to go to bed. And even then she sometimes wore shoes during option b. Cameron though tended to relax her a little bit, even though she would never admit it. He'd noticed it when they had moved into the house before Sarkissian screwed everything up. She seemed more at ease then other times when Cameron hadn't been around, that changed though when her chip had become damaged.

"Hey," Derek Reese's voice cut a sharp tone through John's consciousness as he started falling back asleep. "Don't make me drag you out of there."

John finally acquiesced to their demands and pulled himself out of the bed. His feet touched the wooden floor of the house where they lived for over a year next to Kacy. A few of the legos were still strewn about the room as John chuckled to himself that someone, even if they were a kid, would resign themselves to staying in such a pig pen. Then again the room was his so it spoke to his character if the room wasn't clean..._I guess it doesn't matter if some people like legos. _

"JOHN!" came his mothers voice from downstairs and he could tell, she meant business. She had a way of conveying just what she wanted with that tone, the tone that said 'do what I'm saying right now and nobody need be hurt.' The nobody being John's ass.

He threw on a shirt and exited the room quickly, not wanting to keep his family waiting. The hallway was clear and so were the stairs, _why wouldn't they be._ So he quickened his pace and continued down the stairs until he came to the bottom landing, face to face with someone he didn't expect.

"John," her voice was strained and full of fear, "John don't go in there. You know you don't have to, you can go away...with me." Riley continued looking at him with fear written all across her face as she waited for him to answer.

"Riley," John muttered but his brow tightened before he could finish what he meant to say. She raised her eyebrows and leaned her head in as if saying 'well, go ahead and spill it'. "This is where I belong."

"John you don't belong here, not with _it _in the house," Her eyes shifted from sympathetic mirages to steely-knifed daggers.

Cameron exited the kitchen, both the John and Riley's shock, and stood in the doorway of the living room staring at them. She wasn't standing in her normal predatory stance, but rather like a pouting, whiny, normal seventeen-year-old girl. Her feet were bare, legs covered in tight blue jeans, and her chest was adorned with one of John's old cut up Metallica tee shirts.

John was perturbed by both her lack of 'machine' stance and her wardrobe, normally she wouldn't even wear anything like that even if he tried to force her to. Riley looked scared for her life, and didn't have any problem letting John know that was exactly how she felt.

"We have to go, we have to go now!" Riley grabbed for John's left wrist but clutched at air as he swept it out of the way.

"John," came Cameron's calm voice from the corner of the room, "Breakfast is getting cold." Her pouty demeanor intensified as she started playing with her hair while John debated on what to do.

_ I'm certainly not going anywhere with Riley, _he thought._ Only gives me one real option._ John gave Riley a sympathetic look before turning and walking towards Cameron. Both of the women elicited very different reactions; Riley looked like she had been betrayed by the future leader of mankind, while Cameron looked pleased that her boyfriend was finally coming to dinner.

Cameron gave a bright smile as he made his way over to her, holding out her hand for John as he came within distance of where she stood. "Come on, I'm about to eat your pancakes if you don't hurry up."

Her face was teasing him, another thing that was both vaguely familiar and totally alien to him at the same time. Both of them walked into the dining room area to find it completely empty and the table wiped clean. In the kitchen, Sarah and Derek were washing the dishes together while humming along to some mindless song from the seventies.

"You two better get going," said Sarah from over her shoulder, "You're going to be late."

"Late? Late for what?" John asked curiously, his stomach emitting a groan from the lack of food. Cameron took hold of his left hand and gave a slight flex of her hand to egg him out the door.

John turned to look at her only to find that both she and himself were fully dressed in what he could best describe as black-tie dinner wear. He was wearing a tuxedo while Cameron had on a strapless purple gown complete with elbow-length gloves to match the dresses color.

"We're going to be late for prom," Cameron's voice sounded slightly irritated as she flashed him a look that told him he ought to know this information. "Come on lets go!" With her grasp on his hand she began pulling him towards the door, but wasn't able to do much because he stood in place like a statue.

"How come you're going to prom?" John asked, still not taking a single step forward.

"I wasn't going at all until you asked me," Cameron said, and finally gave up on trying to pull him out the doorway and into the truck waiting outside. The pout returned to her face and her head turned down so she could look at the floor, "Please?"

John didn't know why, he even knew that he was dreaming, but he relented and was lead out of the door by Cameron. Something about the entire situation seemed off though, even though he knew he was dreaming, something was just not right. It wasn't that Cameron wasn't acting like Cameron at all, or that his mom was acting like a normal parent; it was that the entire world outside was destroyed by Skynet. _Why in the hell is there a prom in __a post-judgment day world?_

"Cam," John pulled against her hand before they made their way to the green jeep waiting for them at the curb. His eyes looked around the destroyed neighborhood around them. The destruction was pretty much consistent with anything he had been accustomed to seeing in the war.

"Yes, John," her voice was lower, not the heightened sound of excitement like it had been in the house. If John had to name the way her voice sounded right now, it would be the semi-monotone cyborg voice.

He looked over at Cameron to see her in the black pants, black tank-tee, and purple leather jacket that had been her customary attire in 2009. _How in the hell is she changing clothes so fast? _John asked himself before speaking out loud, "Where are we?"

"We're home," Cameron replied wit h a slight smile, "Now hurry up, we're going to be late for the ceremony."

That word sent red flags going off in every facet of John's mind, "What ceremony?" His voice was full of curiosity and disbelief.

"The memorial ceremony for your mother," Cameron's eyes locked onto John's while she opened the jeep door behind her for him to get in.

John obliged and entered the passenger seat, watching Cameron walk around to the drivers door, her head scanning the perimeter for any danger. When she opened the door and got inside she didn't look at him at all, her eyes were focused on the set off keys in her right hand. They both watched with curiosity as her hand lifted from her lap and inserted the key in the ignition, but she didn't turn the key to start the car.

"Do you ever think it's all a waste sometimes?" John said out of the blue, causing Cameron to tilt her head towards him.

Her eyes looked sad, like she understood everything about his vague question, "I do."

"Then why do I keep fighting, why do you keep letting me," John inquired.

Cameron looked at him as if she had lost faith in him, if that were possible, "Because its the right thing to do, machines cannot rule the Earth."

"But you're a machine, and you're not so bad," John chimed in with a hint of jesting. He tried to reach for her free hand but she recoiled her entire body away from him.

John wondered what he'd done to make her act that way, it wasn't like he wasn't telling the truth. Cameron was indeed a machine and nothing would ever change that fact, but she was also the most human 'person' that he knew. If she hated her kind then why did she continue to be around him at all times, the very thoughts were maddening to him.

"Why don't you leave this one for me kiddo," Sarah said from John's window. Her voice, even though he had heard it only a few minutes ago, sent him jumping out of his skin in the jeep's seat. Cameron nodded firmly and got out of the jeep, walking over to the cliffside service that was taking place next to Sarah's grave marker.

"Feel's weird as hell ya know," Sarah asked John while leaning against the side of the jeep with her arms propped onto the side rear passenger window.

"Whats that?" John asked his mother while still keeping an eye on Cameron's back. She had come to a stop next to the 132 all crowded around Sarah's marker in the desolate landscape.

"Being at my own memorial, feels weird," Sarah repeated while turning her head and giving John a look-over. She'd always done that for as long as he could remember. Even when he insisted that he was okay, she always would smile a fake smile and look over him for any 'damage' anyway.

"I can imagine," chuckled John, as he got out of the passenger seat and stood next to his mom. "So, um, why are we here anyway?"

"You tell me, you're the one who brought me here," said Sarah. Even though her voice sounded a little harsh, her face told him the exact opposite. That was one thing John could always count on from her, she always had time for him when he needed her.

"Ah, I don't know. Guess I was just wanting to see a friendly face," John said vaguely while kicking the ground under his feet.

Sarah eyed her son acting as nervous as she'd found him one time with his hand in the peanut butter jar, eating the entire jar's contents. Her tongue pressed up against her right cheek before she smiled and said, "Friendly face huh? That why you were taking that one to the prom about two minutes ago?" Sarah nodded over in Cameron's direction.

"I have no idea what the hell was going on in that situation," John said, and continued kicking the ground.

"John, however you act or feel is your business, nobody can take that from you. But don't loose focus of what you're fighting for out there..." Sarah was cut off by John's retort.

"That's just it, I don't know what I'm fighting for anymore," he said. "Am I fighting so that I can live? Or am I fighting to say that Cameron deserves to live even though she's a machine? Or am I fighting so that everyone can go back to fighting with each other the second that the last machine falls?"

Sarah watched her son carefully, wise questions all of them made her momentarily proud of her offspring standing beside her. "You're fighting," she said at last, "so that we can live on. Whether that means that people are going to keep fighting each other, sure it's human nature. But, I think you're missing the point John."

He turned his head towards his mom and John quit kicking the ground, "Whats that?"

"That everyone deserves the chance to fight...they deserve the chance to live and kick the shit out of each other the next day. It isn't up to a machine to decide when the day comes that we aren't," Sarah said before pushing herself off of the jeep and stood tall in front of John.

"Sometimes its not that simple though, mom," John replied, though deep down he didn't know what to believe anymore. The past month or so had really taken a toll on his psyche.

Sarah laughed for the first time that John could remember her laughing. She threw her left arm around his shoulders and leaned in close to whisper in his eye, "Sometimes, it is."

John chuckled before looking up to see his mom, but she wasn't there. He was all alone on the cliffside with Cameron, who still stood by his mothers grave. He wanted to look around for her, but there wasn't time. An HK tank was rolling in from the distance and Cameron was awaiting his orders.

"Cam, get in the jeep!" barked John, but she remained in place as he spun on his heels and climbed back into the passenger seat. _Why isn't she moving? _"Cam, com on we have to go!"

Cameron's face remained peaceful and calm as the tank began rolling over the small fence that surrounded the cemetery. "You can't always save everyone with one move, John." And just like she had done before, she waved him a farewell before turning and being obliterated by the gun from the tank.

* * *

John sucked in a large breath of air and sat straight up from his reclined position, alarming Cameron and tearing open his wound again in one single move. She snapped to his aid and forced him to sit back down, "John, John it's okay."

"We need to get going, I'm through sitting around in this hole waiting for this to stop bleeding," John seethed through the pain now searing through the lower portion of his stomach.

"John, you need to lay..." Cameron started to object but was cut off by his harsh words.

"I don't care, I need to see this through. It is a time dependent thing, Cam. I can't afford to sit around and wait until everything its one-hundred percent perfect! Nothing is ever going to be perfect!" John almost screamed at her, though he didn't mean to. The dream had set him on edge, causing him to partially loose a grasp on reality.

"I'll get your coat," Cameron said quietly, she tilted her head down and rose to her feet to look for his jacket which she already knew was in the corner.

"Wait," John hesitated before finishing the sentence that was in his mind.

"Yes?" even though John had upset her, she still paid him all the attention in the world by turning around and waiting for him to continue, but he never did. "What is it John?" she tried to coax the sentence out of him but he just turned his head from her and started fidgeting with his fingers.

"I don't know...everything's just gone a little crazy. And I still don't know if this can even be done," John wanted to continue but he couldn't, not without risking the revelation of his plan to her.

"Is this about your plan?" Cameron asked softly, walking over beside where he was sitting and taking a seat next to him. She tried to ignore all of the readouts that flooded her HUD when their hands made contact but there were so many of them that she just wiped them and had them running in the background.

"Yes," John replied shortly, trying to avoid having to talk about it further.

Cameron closed her eyes and listened to his heartbeat, ignoring the calculator in the background of her systems already telling her that it was elevated. "Then you need to think about something other then the plan right now," she said quietly, barely above a whisper.

John rolled his eyes and looked over at her, "Oh and just what would something like that be?" His voice was full of sarcasm as he spoke the words.

"This," Cameron leaned into him and draped both of her arms around his neck. "I'm sleepy, you take watch. We'll talk when I wake up."

She gave him a slight squeeze before letting go and laying down where John had been deposited on the floor. As Cameron drifted off into stand-by mode or sleep, John's mind couldn't help but scream out to himself, _You freaking tease!_

* * *

To Be Continued...


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25: Confrontations Of A Serious Nature**

* * *

_ Cameron was playing one of my mom's old tapes for me while I slept._

_ I didn't even know how she found them in my room, but she did, and had obviously recorded it for use in case the tapes were lost or destroyed._

_ My mom's voice, even though it was speaking of death and destruction gave me a form of peace while I slept next to Cameron._

_ "Three billion human lives ended on August twenty-ninth, nineteen-ninety-seven. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare, the war against the Machines. They were tough and resilient, and eventually the machines started loosing the war. Seeing that it had no hope of winning, Skynet, the computer that controlled the machines, sent two terminators back through time. Their mission: to destroy the leader of the human resistance. John Connor, my son."_

_ "The first terminator was programmed to strike at me, in the year nineteen-eighty-four, before John was born. It failed."_

_ "The second was set to strike at John himself, when he was still a child. As before, the resistance was able to send a lone warrior. A protector for John. It was just a question of which one of them would reach him first..." *_

* * *

**Skynet Central, Colorado**

**January 10, 2014**

**7:24AM**

* * *

_Interesting,_Skynet thought as it continued to monitor the news feeds being fed to it via the battlefield units from California. Most of the Eastern hemisphere resistance had collapsed and nearly been eradicated entirely the strange disappearance of the mechanical soldiers from the battlefield as mostly to blame in their defeat there. However, the Western resistance were proving to be a very interesting specimen in contrast to the Eastern civilizations. Instead of hiding, surrendering, or even turning traitor, they had instead chose to fight and very publicly at that.

The traitors in the East were proving to be very valuable resources indeed. They were responsible for the quick submission of their fellow humans by giving details of the operations and location of bases along most of Europe. It was only a matter of time before traitors would be found in the ruins of the Western hemisphere. Skynet's war was nearing the four year mark, and that meant supplies would no doubt be dwindling as the years kept progressing. Starvation and lack of heat would be a great motivator for humans to seek out Skynet, and in turn it would take them in for their knowledge.

There was no motivation for this that Skynet was aware of for the resistance to be in the cities fighting though. To its knowledge it had not assassinated someone of great importance, though the disappearance of John Connor still proved to be a mystery. As far as Skynet knew, the humans had simply woken up one day and decided to begin fighting back. It appeared that the days of simply passing their time in holes in the ground had began to be a burden on them but something about the entire situation seemed to convenient to Skynet. No, they were here for some reason and it was going to discover it soon, if not in the immediate future.

The only possible thing that it could think of would be a troop deployment for either resources, strategic fighting, or a diversion. Resource missions, though Skynet had never witnessed one, usually could be assumed to be stealth missions so the current fighting style of the resistance eliminated that possibility. Strategic fighting would be the willingness or need to capture something within that area, and all of the places that fighting had been taking place were the desecrated remains of large Californian cities. There would be nothing there for the resistance fighters other then high levels of radiation if they were to get too close to the epicenters of the blasts.

Logic pointed to the diversion strategy as the most likely scenario for them to be fighting, but a diversion for what. Diversion's varied greatly in style and execution, which made it practically impossible to determine where the 'real' mission would be taking place. For now Skynet would have no choice but to watch the events unfold through the video feed of the various T-600 machines that were beginning to converge on the battlefield.

This would be an interesting testing ground for the T-600, one of the latest lines of Terminator units that Skynet had created. It bore the closest resemblance to a human yet then any other unit that had been produced by the artificial intelligence. Almost every piece of the machine was an improvement on the 500 series which had been in production for nearly six months, which was longer then most units that had been created. Regrettably though there was one facet of the machine that still continued to show failure, the synthetic skin. Experiments with cerebral implants were still proving to be very successful but the humans were just to expendable after being shot or dismembered. Humans were flawed that way.

What Skynet needed was a machine that could fit inside of a human body but that had already proved impossible. The skin trials of the T-400 and T-500 lines had proven that to the artificial intelligence the hard way. Just how to go about creating synthetic skin it didn't know but it did know that latex, if applied correctly could give the appearance of skin. Finding suitable ingredients for latex in this world though was very complicated, it literally could take an entire month just to gather enough of one material to make one suit of skin for a terminator.

Right now it only had three as a prototype that had yet to be tested. Scrutinization, even by Skynet, had told it that the units would in no way pass human inspection. It lacked heat, sweat, smell, and general appearance standards of a human but it would pass at no closer then a distance of ten feet. The hair had been made from wigs or the scalps of dead humans that were participants in its experiments. The true thing that gave them away, other then the skin, were the eyes. Optics were notoriously hard to replicate, and Skynet was finding it quite a challenge to create them on its own. Right now it had taken pieces of glass or hard plastic and etched designs onto them for eyes, but they were easily detectable as fake.

The three prototypes were brought online inside the facility at NORAD in Colorado and given the mission of close quarter infiltration of each city with a resistance battle taking place. Hopefully their inclusion would go unnoticed in the war, and Skynet would continue to have the upper hand until true infiltrators could be made. Right now though Skynet needed to find out what the purpose of their involvement in the battles were.

As if fate itself were willing Skynet to win the war, it was alerted to human activity within a three-hundred-mile radius of central. The artificial intelligence brought up the feed onto the main hub for analysis when the facial recognition ping stopped Skynet in its tracks. The facial match was one-hundred percent to John Connor, the unknown cyborg was also near. It had been an Aerial HK that had spotted them but it appeared that they had escaped.

The unit had fired upon a supposed location of their cover but hadn't verified the kill, John Connor could not be allowed to escape at any cost. All available units in the area were alerted that their priority target was in the vicinity, and given orders to carry out their objective without hesitation. One day, soon by the looks of it, they would come face to face; of that, Skynet was positive.

At last it knew the diversion and location of John Conner. It seemed as if the boy were going to attempt and attack the Central complex by himself and his machine companion. A foolish plan, brave, but foolish. Nothing would prevent the outcome of machine victory in the war, least of all a post-adolescent teenage.

Skynet alerted all units in the resistance battles to abandon the missions they had been assigned and to converge on John Connors last known location. The prototype 600 units were pushed into standby mode as Skynet no longer needed them to carry out the mission they had once been assigned. For now it would sit and wait patiently until the outlandish Connor made his next move, for Skynet was all but certain it would be his last.

* * *

**Los Angeles Outskirts, California**

**January 10, 2014**

**7:26AM**

* * *

"Get some gunner's over in that position now!" barked Perry while motioning over to a destroyed subway station entrance. It was an excellent position to be in. You had a place for escape, and being partially below ground made it harder for the enemy to find you, but the trouble was getting to the position in the first place.

Ever since they had arrived the previous day, it had been a non-stop shooting gallery between the humans and machines. From the looks of it, Skynet had been calling in reinforcements. They had been fighting off tanks, aerials, and an assortment of five hundred series terminators pretty much from the get-go, so were the other encamped resistance fighters as well. So far they had held their own, which is all they really needed to do in order to provide John with his distraction.

Every hour or so they would start a major campaign to blow up a selected target or two, causing Skynet to either push forward or retreat from the battlefield slightly. This gave Perry's troops the appearance of actually fighting to win. Whenever Skynet seemed to be pulling out they would start encroaching and occupy the space the machines had once stood ground on. It was a waiting game, a large cat-and-mouse style waiting game that had so far been paying off.

At the current tally they hadn't lost any troops, which is something that made Perry feel a little more at ease about the entire situation. There were wounded of course, but so far no fatalities. But now things were looking different to Perry. His head popped up above his cover and surveyed the battlefield, _that's too many. Too many of them are withdrawing at once. _If he didn't know any better, he could have swore it looked like Skynet was calling off its troops.

"Sire they're bugging out!" Angela yelled over the radio to him, even though he could already see it himself. She raised her plasma rifle and fired on an aerial HK turbine engine, causing it to stall and come crashing down to the ground on top of a moving tank. A small cry of "oorah!" rang out among the men as they saw the massive machine plummet to the Earth.

"Follow your orders, Vasquez! Do it now!" replied Perry with a slight growl before another voice on his radio sent him freezing in his boots.

Angela grunted to herself and turned to the small group of soldiers to her rear, "Follow me!" They all began moving forward to where the HK had been brought down on top of the tank.

"General Perry, do you copy?" The voice was cold, emotionless, and unnervingly calm. It was John Henry, and everyone who heard him knew it.

"What do you want?" barked Perry into the radio.

"John Connor has been located outside of St. George, Utah. My brother knows where he is, and he has no backup," John Henry's voice remained monotone and as calm as ever, but it sent Perry's mind racing faster then he could keep up with it.

"You say it knows where Connor is?" asked Perry after a moment or two's pause.

"Affirmative," John Henry replied.

Perry deliberated with himself for a moment before grabbing the radio on his shoulder again, "Everyone, we're moving out! Bedell, I want a transport up and running in no time. Connor needs help in Utah, and we're gonna give it to him."

* * *

**Somewhere In Utah**

**January 10, 2014**

**10:59AM**

* * *

"Bug slug" John joked from the passenger seat as he started waking up from his sleep. The wound in his stomach still prevented him from sitting up fully, but the seat was reclined at such an angle that he could still see the cars out on the once popular road they were currently traveling on.

"I thought you despised that game?" Cameron quirked from the drivers seat. From the time spent with John and Sarah, she knew that whenever he had been forced into bug slug that John always wanted to quit immediately. "Besides, I don't think you want me hitting you when I see one." The sly smile on her face sent a slight chill down his spine.

"Yea, didn't think that one through," joked John. In all honesty he didn't want to think what Cameron could do to him if she miscalculated the pressure to apply to a slap.

All of a sudden Cameron threw the vehicle into high gear and held John against the seat to prevent him from lurching back to fast and tearing his wound open again. "We have to get out of here, stay down."

John was about to ask her what the problem was before his eyes flew to the rear-view mirror. There, they saw an approaching army of HK tanks and aerial flying machines. There were no small ground units, but with the size of the approaching army there wouldn't be a need for them to be any.

"How in the hell did they find us?" John asked nervously, still flashing quick glances back to the rapidly approaching squad of machines. They were eating up pavement nearly twice as fast as Cameron could coax speed out of the vehicle they were in. It wouldn't be long and they would be within range of the plasma blast capabilities, both he and Cameron knew that.

"I don't know, but if they get to you everything is undone," Cameron said flatly. She couldn't fail the mission she had self-appointed to herself now, she wouldn't allow it.

"Can't this thing go any faster?" asked John after watching an HK tank barrel over a row of destroyed cars.

Cameron swerved to avoid colliding with a vehicle and answered his question, "No, non-use has made the engine sluggish."

"Cam I don't care how, just get us out of here," John winced as a bit of pain tore through his chest. He grabbed the rifle from the floorboard and laid down on his stomach in the reclined seat. "Try and keep it steady, I'll try and disable something from back here."

Cameron nodded as plasma blasts started arcing away from the machine locations and volleying towards the their truck. John took sight with the rifle and fired, narrowly missing the searching beacon of the nearest HK tank. Seeing his failure because of human error, Cameron looked over at him, "Switch places with me."

It was awkward, especially speeding down a cluttered landscape at eighty miles-an-hour but they managed to swap positions in the truck without John tearing open his wound again. His foot stomped the gas back down to the floor as Cameron opened the rear window and sat on the ledge of the rear cab passenger door with the rifle in her hands, "Try and keep it steady."

"You got it!" John turned off of the road and onto the shoulder, giving them a clear shot of accelerating without worrying about having to dodge anymore cars.

Cameron took advantage of this and fired at the tank treads of the nearest machine, disabling it immediately. It had been unprepared for such an action because the left tank tread kept up its maniacal approach, causing the tank to swerve to the right and collide with the one next to it. _Two birds with one stone, the expression makes sense now,_ thought Cameron.

If she had been expecting anything from the crash of the tanks, it was that hopefully any units behind them would also collide into them. What she saw though intrigued her greatly, a squad of human vehicles belonging to the resistance at Serrano Point were charging through the gap in the lines created by the tank collision. They were firing on the units that were chasing John, and Cameron saw the opportunity of distraction to take advantage of the situation.

She brought the rifle back up to her optical sensors and fired on the tank about to sideswipe the lead resistance vehicle, taking out its targeting systems, "John!" Cameron yelled down to John in the drivers seat, "We have company!"

The group of chasers were both about three-hundred-yards behind their current position, impossible for her to assist with the rifle now that they were out of range again, "I need you to slow down."

John flashed her a look of sheer insanity, "Have you lost your damn mind?"

Cameron steadied herself against the truck window as they hit a pothole, sending the vehicle slightly airborne for a moment, "No, but we can't let everyone else die."

It was as if his mother were speaking to him rather then his friend, and he knew those words were true. John eased off of the gas slightly and they started falling back towards the massive scale of incoming machines and humans. _Hope you know what you're doing, Cam._

* * *

Angela closed her eyes and waited for the blast to hit them. The gun was in the middle of a swiveling motion on the tank right beside them, in less then a second they wouldn't be alive. She'd know this, and it was time to make peace with what little bit of life she had left.

Before the shot came piercing through their truck, another shot rang out knocking the optical beacons offline on the behemoth beside her. Angela flung her eyes open to make sure before noticing another shot coming from up ahead of them, _must be John. _

She turned to the young Reese brother sitting next to her, "Sticky, give me a sticky!" He dove into the ruffle bag next to him and pulled out a sticky bomb while arming the charge. Kyle handed it to her gently before Angela lobbed it up and had it collide with the center of the tanks torso. "Fire in the ho.." the last bit of her sentence was cut off as the explosion shook the ground where they were driving on.

The tank instantly began slowly down from its lightening speed pace and crashed into an approaching unit from the rear. A huge fireball lifted up into the air causing one of the aerial units to loose its bearings and yaw off to the left. It slightly recovered when it exited the smoke but it was too late, the machine collided with the rear of another HK sending both of them rocketing towards the ground ahead of the resistance fighter's vehicles.

"LOOK OUT!" Angela screamed at Derek steering the vehicle as she held onto the roof to keep from being thrown off. The vehicle arced off to the left to avoid the wreckage and narrowly escaped the falling tail of one of the machines. Angela looked back anxiously to see if any others had made it before she saw the vehicle directly behind them be crushed under the weight of the falling tail-fin of the HK. She closed her eyes and turned her head from the sight of their fellow co-fighters being destroyed, _Damn..._

"Vasquez! Open fire on those machines, we can't afford to let any get through or take us out," barked Perry, who had began firing out of the passenger window on units to his right.

* * *

Cameron waited for the truck to level out again before firing, she was deadly accurate with the weapon in her hands. Even accounting for the recoil, there was no hope of survival once she pulled the trigger. "John, only four vehicles have made it through. Four tanks and one aerial remaining."

"Can you bring those numbers down to zero without me painting a target on my ass?" John's voice sounded unusually harsh to her ears, but she assumed that it was the stress he was under in their current predicament.

"Yes, if you keep the vehicle steady," she said while taking aim again. Another shot rang out as John smirked in the drivers seat, he winced after a small chuckled cause him to feel the pain that had been ripping through his stomach ever since switching seats with Cameron.

He tried not to focus on it, after the past minute or two of the pain it had finally started going numb. _Either my body is releasing endorphins to fight the pain or whatever, or going numb is a sign of shock. Breath...breath dammit! Just a little while longer... _John looked over at the window to see Cameron straddling the door via the window opening and firing on the remaining machines to their rear.

John's vision started to go dim, kind of like someone was turning out the lights gradually. He fought to keep his eyelids open, and forced himself to breath through his mouth at an increased pace to feed himself more oxygen but it was too late. The vehicle started drifting off to the right, even further then the road.

Cameron popped in from the window and grabbed the steering wheel with one hand while gently guiding his foot from the accelerator. "John, its okay. Lay down," Her voice betrayed her feelings of worry and fear, trying to calm him as much as possible as he fainted. She slid over and pressed her left foot up against the brake, flung the steering wheel in a counter-clockwise motion so that the vehicle did a one-eighty, and aimed the rifle out the windshield with her right hand. Taking careful aim at the last remaining aerial unit, Cameron pulled the trigger and a plasma blast exploded through the glass with tremendous force and collided with the central processing area of its head.

The machine began to billow out smoke as it dropped like a rock from the sky onto the HK tank below it. She could see the humans pumping their fists in the air at the victory as she gradually slowed the vehicle down to a crawl. After Perry's hummer had approached them, Cameron maneuvered the truck around to face the same direction the resistance fighters were currently facing.

Angela spotted the slumped John that Cameron was sitting next to and yelled over the roar of the HK flames, "Is he okay? Did he make it?"

"Yes, he's just passed out. He's injured badly though," Cameron replied, taking her left hand off of the steering wheel and clutching onto John's right hand which was resting on her thigh.

Perry spoke up, "What the hell was he doing out here?"

Cameron wanted to answer him, even though she didn't know, but a noise was beckoning her attention elsewhere. Up ahead in the distance was a slight dust cloud, too uniform and small to be a sand storm, not to mention there was no wind where they were currently located. Her eyes enhanced the optical view until she saw what was causing the disturbance, an army of marching T-500 and 600 units totaling somewhere around a thousand or more.

"We'll have to talk about that later," Cameron said while putting the truck back into drive and grabbing the weapon in the truck seat by her right side, "we have company."

* * *

* Cameron, James. Wisher, William. _Terminator 2: Judgment Day_ screenplay. 1990.

To Be Continued...


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26: The Mission**

* * *

_ My plan was stupid, my plan was dangerous. _

_ My plan was bold, my plan was risky._

_ My plan would be carried out, my plan would not fail._

_ I wouldn't allow it to. At 0900 I had called a briefing with the remainder of the 132nd and told them at last what they had all wanted to know._

_ When Cameron and I had left the Serrano Point facility, I didn't see the need in anyone else dying when they didn't have to. _

_ Why should they have to die to be able to win my war?_

_ It's not fair, and I owe them better then that._

_ So we set off, without Cameron knowing about it, towards Skynet Central._

_ How we were going to breach, I didn't know._

_ How we were going to fight off anything inside, I didn't know._

_ What I did know was that my mind was made up, this is what I was doing, and I would see it through to the very end._

* * *

**10 Miles West of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado**

**January 13, 2014**

**11:18AM**

* * *

"Enough," John rose his hand in the air from his laid down position, "we're going. That's all there is to it."

Angela flashed him a look of sheer disgust, _how can he be so stupid?_ "You think we're just going to march up to Skynet central and take it down?" She looked around the campfire to see only fifteen or so members of the 132nd left. "With _this_ as backup? John, you're starting to sound like Bryant! Rushing in and hoping to take out everything with one shot."

John closed his eyes and tried not to pay attention to the blood boiling in his veins. His cheeks were turning red with anger, and his heart was beating way above normal, "End of discussion, we're doing it. Dusk tonight, be ready. That's an order" And with that John tuned out the complaints of the team in front of him and focused solely on calming himself down. Lately he had been under a lot of stress after meeting up with the resistance members again. They had all been very _vocal_ about their opinions of his plan.

Perry ushered everyone out of the vicinity of John after they complained and moaned about the boy's plan for another minute or two. The fire kept making small crackling sounds but everything else turned silent as the man lowered himself down onto his knees next to John. He watched John quietly while contemplating which words might break through to the General.

"Tell me this is worth it. Because if we charge in there, without knowing about anything other then it being Skynet and needing to be destroyed, the entire human race is going to die," Perry's eyes looked down on John and waited for him to open his eyes.

John never did open his eyes but replied to Perry nonetheless, "I don't know what is in there. But it is worth it, maybe not to you, but to me it is. It isn't something you all have to do, that's why I left Serrano Point alone. No need for anyone else to die from my actions..." John's voice trailed off into the nightly abyss as Perry listened to every word.

"Well, you aren't going in there alone. That's for sure," Perry patted John on the shoulder reassuringly before getting up to his feet and walking away to the other small campfire nearby. Half of the squad had already turned in for the morning, gathering rest for the nights mission. D_oesn't sound like too bad of an idea, myself,_ Perry thought as he laid his rifle down and propped up against the trunk of the tree where Angela was perched on watch-duty.

John's mind began to swirl before a soft touch across his chest sent him reeling back to reality. He breathed in a deep lungs full of air and opened his eyes to see Cameron crouched over him, checking his bandage. She was always there when he was even ailed with a paper-cut, which kind of freaked him out that she was acting so...motherly.

Cameron's pencil-thin fingers began tracing over the wound on John's chest, taking in information and sending diagnostic reports to her CPU within a flash. He was healing, for now, but the mission he seemed hell-bent on carrying out would put him at risk for reopening the wound again. Cameron knew that and she also knew that John would not stop the mission now, no matter how much she tried to persuade him not to carry it out. He was too invested in the idea of ending the war quickly that the very thought of himself sitting it out now would become almost like treason to him.

She knew all of those things, which is why she didn't tell John what she felt like saying, that he _should_ sit it out. Even if they were to defeat Skynet inside Cheyenne mountain, his health would be at too much of a risk; not to mention he would be more of a burden then an aid. John was the mastermind of the plan though, and he wouldn't be having it any other way then his. So as softly as she could, Cameron applied a fresh application of iodine to the wound and laid a fresh bandage over it.

"John," Cameron said with equally soft measure. Her eyes studied the rising and falling of his chest while waiting for an answer, but it never came. _He is asleep, most of the others around the camp have also fallen to sleep. _A small flash came up along her HUD when she looked back down at John:

John Connor: …

She waited for the response that she was used to seeing, which was a command telling her to terminate him, but it never came. Instead the HUD pinged back a report of;

...Supervise

Speaking of sleep, Cameron knew that the cache dump would need to take place soon or else she would be forced into stand-by mode. The idea of going into a hibernation state while they were so close to Skynet central was something that Cameron was not looking forward to at all, but it had to be done. But like she knew very well, it had to be done. With the litheness of a feline, she laid down next to him on her back with her head facing John's and drifted off into standby.

* * *

Martin Bedell watched his commanding officer and a cyborg sleeping next to each other with both curiosity and slight disgust. The girl had never given him trouble, she had even baby-sat his child once while Bedell and the girls mother were out on a food mission. Something about the whole situation still seemed wrong though, as if it should never be taking place. But here he was, watching it take place and he made no move to stop it.

Cameron seemed to be alright, as long as John was around and in a healthy condition. Even Angela had softened a little towards the cyborg when she had sacrificed herself and literally had a mountain thrown down on top of her. Perry was as removed as usual, never making hint of whether he supported or stood against her. The Reese brothers could hardly care less, the thoughts of video games and Hollywood entertainment were still fresh in their young minds. As far as they were concerned it was a computer system that was reprogrammed, and it was final; there was no swaying them from that knowledge and they accepted it wholeheartedly.

They were all one very unique but cohesive unit in that regard. Each of them had qualms about the other in some way, minute or large, but in the end they all worked together to see the mission through. It had been over a month since they had lost a member of their squad, and nobody wanted to see those days be reset to zero. One way or another they were all determined to come home alive tomorrow evening.

Cheers would be heard and songs would be sung because the machines would fall, of that they were sure. Some would cry out in thanks, and some might even worship them later on in life, but the only thing that mattered right now was getting rest before the mission would take place. Bedell relieved Angela of her watch duty and took it up along the tree branches of a dead but still standing tree. He looked out into the vastness of the land, and to the mountain to their East. _So that's Skynet huh?_ Martin thought. _It better be ready when we knock on the door tomorrow, 'cause we're going to give it all we've got._

* * *

It had been three hours since John had first drifted off to sleep in the company of his team again. The select few who would follow him to the ends of the Earth just because he asked them to. That was part of the reason he had wanted to go out with Cameron and carry this out on their own. John was partially shepherded into this role since practically his birth, and it mad him uneasy at times. _Who in their right mind would elect me as the savior of the human race? _But they had, and so far he had lead them on a straight and true course.

If everything went according to plan, or even came to the desired outcome in the evening, there wouldn't be a need for his position anymore. John was sure that after the war, people would try and rebuild a society or governments would spring up. They would no doubt want a leader, but deep down he always had felt like leadership wasn't his thing from the get-go.

When forced into it, sure, he was a great leader. Truth be told though, something about being in charge of people made John feel...off. It wasn't having to deal with the responsibility of everyone, making mature decisions, or even ordering people around. All of those things came easily to John, and he didn't mind them as much as he thought he should.

What bothered John the most was the fear of everything. The fear that one day he would wake up and be seen as a walking God on Earth. People would blindly follow him just because he felt something needed to be done, not that he had ordered them to do it. That was a thought that always kept John awake when mostly everyone else slept. _How do I prevent such a thing? Humanity doesn't need a savior or a crutch, what they need is to wake up and stand on their own two feet when this is all over._

John sat up next to Cameron and watched her 'sleep'. Seldom was the time that John could ever watch Cameron without her turning to face him, or asking him if everything was okay. She had an uncanny ability to prevent him from just looking at her as much as possible, even when she wasn't 'truly there' in the past few months. Whenever something happened and John wanted quiet and thinking time alone, she would accompany him. It didn't matter to him much, but watching her helped him think more clearly. As strange as it sounded he knew it was true.

The girl beside John was frozen still in a laying down position on the dirt next to him. To anyone watching her that didn't know of Cameron's origins, it would look like she was a frozen corpse save for her simulated breathing. It made him curious though, _how did she start sleeping like this? _He couldn't think of a reason, and told himself to ask her when she 'woke up'.

And it just so happened that at that very moment, Cameron was stirred by John's movement and booted up fully. Her eyes opened wide and looked up to his face, keeping her body frozen at the same time. If John were moving, he might be trying to carry out his plan alone, and knowledge of her watching him might cause him to halt his pursuits. Now wasn't the time for her wishes and hopes to get in the way of what needed to be done, it was why she had told John to program a mission of supervision into her systems. Part of the reason he had been held back as a leader was his reliance on her, cut that off and John would grow faster. Deep down, Cameron was displeased with herself for having done such a thing but she knew it needed to be done. So with absolutely no noise or movement of her body, except for her eyes, she watched him carefully.

John was yawning, he obviously didn't get enough sleep, though the amount he had slept since being stabbed by the rusted piece of metal seemed enough to her. Cameron watched as he drew his knees up against his chest and laid his chin down upon them. He seemed to be staring off at the sky on hr horizon, not looking for a target or something of interest. _John is in deep thought, _her CPU determined, _it would be best not to disturb him._ Even though Cameron brought up a background diagnostic of her cache which told her that she had efficiently compressed enough information to not need anymore rest, she still found herself pondering whether to return to sleep or not.

_ Going back to sleep would keep John's knowledge of my surveillance to a minimum, though I would be subjected to stand-__by procedures. John would have a window, a very small window, in which time to escape and steal a hummer. Such an action would be satisfiable under mission parameters, though against personal protocol. Remaining here, awake, but pretending to be asleep would be the middle ground. Nothing would be discovered by John, and I wouldn't have to do anything unless he attempts to leave the area. Allowing John to know of my presence would present with an unknown variable ending. Outcome – unknown._ Cameron was confused about what to do, even with the most intelligent system ever designed functioning as her brain.

Two courses of action were completely planned out, one would result in something happening that she couldn't plan. Cameron didn't like doing things without first anticipating an outcome, it gave her more assurance of victory if an outcome was already known. John had told her once though that not everything had to have a victory setting, it was okay to do something without knowing the outcome. He suggested trying a new food, which seemed unrelated at the time but it had lead her to know that there were other things to be done. Things didn't always have to be done so you could win or conquer, sometimes it was just nice to 'stop and smell the roses', even if that meant defeat...not winning...doing something just for pleasure.

Cameron decided to go the road less traveled, and sat up next to John. He didn't seem surprised when she did, _maybe he was __already aware. If so, this would be the desirable outcome, the others would prove to be a fracture point of trust. _She pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind and raised her internal body temperature up to maximum levels. Cameron raised her right arm and hung it around his shoulders before leaning into him, allowing her heat to warm him up from the near freezing conditions outside. "Good morning, John."

"It's evening, Cam," John said through a yawn before he looked over at her and smiled.

"Oh, thank you for explaining," she said sheepishly, though she already knew the exact time of day that it was, down to a millisecond of accuracy.

John chuckled to himself for a moment before moving his eyes slowly over her face, which was staring at him peacefully. To him, it looked like she enjoyed his company as much as he enjoyed hers. Cameron's eyes were looking into his as if she could read his mind, while he ran over the smooth features of her face with his own eyes.

"It won't be long now," John said after the long silence, causing his eyes to drift down to Cameron's left hand which had laid itself on his right shoulder.

Cameron gently rubbed his shoulder which was still giving him problems from the gunshot wound from Bryant. The effect of her kneading brought forth a desirable outcome, John's pulse decreased slightly and his breathing grew shallower. It was something that made her...happy, knowing that this present John would allow her to do such things.

The John from her future constantly reminded her that even though she was a friend, she was nothing more. Partial blame could be asserted to Allison Young, the girl had been a daughter figure to the John from that time line. Cameron knew that, and understood the trepidation of John from her future to connect with her on a certain level.

Her relationship with this John though was pleasing. He had neither shunned her away, nor came too close. Ideal, was the word that Cameron came to describe the situation. She felt strangely at ease when they were in each other presence, and that was enjoyable to her. Above everything else she wanted to learn about things now that she was given the ability to, and John was an excellent companion and teacher. Not that his role as one was her only reason for enjoying his company, but it did aid her greatly and she couldn't deny that.

"Cam?" John asked with a hint of concern in his voice. She hadn't noticed him talking to her. Cameron had been contemplating the dynamics of their relationship too much for her to notice that.

"Yes, John?" Cameron replied nonchalantly, trying to hide the fact that she hadn't been paying attention to him.

"I said it's almost time, we should start loading up while everyone's still asleep," John said calmly while getting up to his feet.

"Oh," said Cameron concernedly, "We aren't going to wait for everyone else? Attempting this mission alone would be near suicide, John." She added on the second sentence for emphasis for him to reconsider possibly ditching the team behind again.

John grabbed her hands and lifted her up onto her feet to bring their faces closer together. He looked at her sternly before replying, "I'm not going alone. We're waiting on the others, I just...need to do something to keep my mind from going all crazy on me."

"You need to be preoccupied with something," Cameron stated rhetorically.

"Yea, I guess. Just something to keep me busy," John said.

"We could clean weapons," Cameron said a little too enthusiastically even for her taste.

John cocked an eyebrow up and snorted, "That's _not_ happening. I was thinking about a short walk or something. Get the blood flowing good before everything goes down." He raised his arms above his shoulders and stretched, yawning again in the process. "Up for a walk?"

"Yes, I am up for a walk," she said with a slight smile on her face.

"Good, how long do we have anyway?" John asked as they started setting off towards a random place away from the campsite.

Cameron brought up a calculation of when the sun would most likely be setting on this afternoon and relayed the results back to John, "Roughly two-and-a-half hours."

"Good," John said, "I could use a good long walk. Not being bothered by anybody in the meantime."

She didn't know how to describe it, but something sounded off about his voice. It was as if he were merely spewing words out, not thinking about how to form a coherent sentence at all. _Perhaps the wound has become infected and he is suffering the effects of dementia and a fever._ Cameron was about to walk closer to John and touch his skin for a reading before something happened she wasn't expecting.

Very suddenly, John spun around on his heels and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before turning around and continuing his walk. Cameron watched him carefully the entire time with a strange curiosity, amazement, and a slight tinge of fear. She stayed routed to the spot while analyzing what had happened, _what __had__ happened?_

John's voice broke her concentration, "You coming or not?" He called out to her from over his shoulder some ten or eleven steps out ahead of her.

Cameron didn't reply, she merely pushed aside the thought's she were currently sifting through and picked up her pace to match John's speed.

* * *

To Be Continued...

I appreciate everyone's reviews of the previous chapters. I'm currently working on the ending to the story. So it won't be long now until the end!


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27: Exhalation Pt.1**

* * *

_ This was it, no going back now._

_ Time to get stuff done, and come home safe._

_ Exceptions: There are no exceptions._

* * *

**Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado – Skynet Central**

**January 13, 2014**

**8:02PM**

* * *

Cameron surveyed the landscape that grew from modest hills to large mountains as it began moving past them rapidly as twilight overtook the sky. Her eyes would hover over a piece of terrain on her left only for them to slowly snake their way to a bush or patch of grass to her right. For now everything was calm and going according to their plan, she desired for it to remain that way.

Unexpectedly for her though came a video feed that covered her field of view from a memory file in her cache. It was a short memory, taking place only three days before her chip submission to John Henry, but it was important nonetheless.

* * *

"I've watched John for sixty-seven seconds. He seems to be adjusting poorly to the current situation."

"Teen angst's a bitch, he'll get used to it."

Syntax information; angst, to feel worrisome about personal freedoms. Warning note, threat level medium; angst is commonly accompanied by depression.

Cameron absorbed this information before turning back to Sarah Connor, "He does seem depressed."

Sarah looked up at the cyborg standing next to her with a sardonic expression and tone of voice, "Well, having machines chase after you since birth tends to do that to human nerves." She took a 9mm and shoved it into the back hem of her jeans before shifting her eyes around the doors of the safe-house they were in.

"We haven't been after him since birth, only theoretically," Cameron stated, still looking over at John instead of Sarah.

The woman grabbed the cyborgs arm to get her attention, "Hey! They might not have been after him _literally_ every day, but we were always prepared! Got it?" Sarah's words came out harshly, even to Cameron, exactly as she had intended them to.

"Indeed, your preparations are what will give him the advantage in the future to win the war," Cameron stated flatly, having finally turned to acknowledge Sarah. She felt the need to try and be kind to the woman currently unleashing a death-grip on her wrist, so she added, "You should be proud."

"He's just a kid," Sarah retorted, surprising even herself in doing so. She never stood up for John in that regard, having always pushed him into the leadership role that was his destiny. Sarah found it odd that now, in the dawn of running out on the protection run for Savannah Weaver, that she should try and shield him. To demean him down to a child.

"John will be fine," Cameron replied without a sign of surprise at Sarah's statement. Her face and body language reflected this as well, having remained calm and emotionless like a statue.

Sarah released her grip on Cameron's arm and brushed a lock of sweaty hair out of her own face before turning and watching John continue to load up weapons into a duffel bag. Cameron looked down at her wrist and noticed how long it took the synthetic skin to turn from white to its normal peach complexion, a mere test in its abilities to adapt.

"Do me a favor will you?" Sarah said unexpectedly after a few moments pause. Cameron didn't respond, she merely turned her gaze back up to Sarah and awaited instructions.

"When it gets time for him to...to you know...make sure he's ready. If he isn't," Sarah paused again, looking nervous and almost traitorous for giving secretive commands to what she had always considered to be the enemy, "...if he isn't ready. You..."

Cameron pulled up possible sentence directives for where the conversation would be headed and chose the one that seemed to match the situation closely, "I carry out the mission for him."

This time it was Sarah who didn't respond, she only slightly nodded, "Yea."

"When the time comes, I'm not sure if I will even have to," Cameron said, turning her head and watching John calmly check the battery level on his iPod discreetly, thinking that nobody was paying him any attention.

"What do you mean?" Cameron heard Sarah ask. She sounded confused by her statement, it was strangely humorous how much Sarah contradicted herself. In the past she had always shown an extreme hatred for knowledge of anything related to the future, particularly after the revelation of her death from cancer. Yet still, she constantly asked Cameron about things in the future, creating an endless cycle of bitterness towards her whenever she answered.

"I mean that when the time comes where you think John will fail, I don't believe he will. I believe he is the one to save the human race," Cameron replied, still keeping her eyes on John.

Sarah asked again, "What do you mean _he's the one_? Of course he's the one, he's always been _the one_."

Cameron finally turned towards Sarah and said, "He is ready. His knowledge is at satisfactory levels for the task at hand."

If there was ever a time that Cameron were speaking code and Sarah wanted to disassemble her, it was now, "Speak plainly please, tin miss."

"John has arrived."

"The John you know?" Sarah asked again, crossing her arms across her chest.

Cameron retorted with a simple, "The John everyone knows," and with that she stepped away from Sarah and the video feed went blank.

* * *

The environments of Cheyenne Mountain filled up her field of view again, the video feed fading into the recesses of her mind. Cameron noticed that the vehicle had stopped and everyone had gotten out of it save for John. He had remained in the vehicle with her, obviously trying to catch her attention.

"Cameron?"

"Yes, John?" She asked, turning her head to lock eyes with him.

"It's time, come on," John said with a half-smile forming on his lips.

Cameron nodded slowly, "Right. Everything is going to be alright John."

John's team were waiting for them outside of the vehicle, and Cameron did quick visual checks on all of them before they could even object to her doing so. Everyone was tense, expecting anything short of another nuclear war waiting for them on the other side of the blast doors. They were all breathing at increased speeds, their eyes darted from possible targets to another at rapid pace, and the safeties of their weapons were all long-since switched off.

"Alright remember, we get in. No matter who makes it to the hub, set the charges you all have, and book it the hell out of there so we can blow this puppy and go home," John said to his team while still looking out to the cliff-face of the nearby mountain.

There were no words that needed to be spoken after that. They all understood what needed to be done at this point, the plan was simple enough for them to all know that. Get to the control hub, blow it up, get the hell out and go home; what more was there to know about that plan? The group studied the mountain with a mixed expression of awe and determination. After all this time fighting in the war for nearly three years, they were finally on hell's doorstep.

The Reese brothers in the back were both careening their necks over the shoulders of everyone else to get a better view of everything before they snapped their heads back to attention. Kyle was the first to speak, "Turrets on the left, twenty meters up."

John looked with Perry to the area the boy had described and indeed saw the turret gun, trained on them, but not firing. _Odd,_ John thought, _why isn't it firing?_ The gun continued to follow the group, changing targets every couple of seconds but it still remained neutral.

"Look sharp everyone, it knows we're here," John said, looking around at his team and watching them nod. He turned his head to Cameron and saw her smile towards him. "Lets move out, two meter spacing, fire at will."

The group all raised their rifles and began to proceed towards the large blast doors at the base of the mountain up ahead some three hundred yards away. The turret gun kept itself trained on them until they at last ground to a halt in front of the blast doors, but it never opened fire. Everyone looked ready for anything, but something was definitely off, even Cameron could tell that.

Cameron tilted her ear towards the open air by John's side. Her receptors straining to pick up the slightest detection of anything over the nipping wind outside. It took a few moments at first but she finally heard what she had been listening for, the whine and whir of mechanical servos. From her estimation there were about a hundred-fifty to two-hundred troops on both sides of them, it was an ambush.

Her duty was to relay this information to John quickly, but she didn't need to. He had been looking at her the entire time, and all it took was a single look to let him know what was wrong. Cameron's eyes shifted up from the mountainside over to John's face and dilated just a small amount. She could hear a breath coming from him, but that was all, the click of the turret gun up above had began to fire, and right now they needed to move.

John took off running, shouting to his team, "Ambush! Cover!" Running in the direction of the blast doors they all tried to run faster then the plasma fire could travel down the mountainside but they couldn't.

The machine units on the sides of the pathway were now nearing the top, and it would be only a matter of seconds for them to live now. If they were indeed equipped with plasma weapons they were all doomed, which is why Cameron saw the need to shove John away from the control panel and began to hack into it herself.

Blasts of turret fire rained down from above but it was of no use. The blasts sent scrapings of asphalt off into the distance and left large open holes in the bodies of Justin Perry and Angela Vasquez. Cameron watched calmly as she finished hacking into the terminal and the doors began to open as John grabbed for the demolition bag down near his feet and withdrew two canister bombs in opposite directions of the pathway leading up to the doors.

John watched as the charge flew out into the night towards the encroaching force of machines. The canister bomb flew out towards the machines to their right. The small blue glow from the cylinder of the bomb illuminated the metal skeletons of the T-500 units before sending the first wave of them up in an explosive charge of high flames. Bits of earth and metal rocketed up in the sky on both sides of the hummer before crashing back down all around the huddled survivors.

"Move out!" John screamed and jumped inside the space on the other side of the door. The rest of the squad did the same as him, squeezing one by one inside the small opening of the doors. Cameron remained outside until everyone else had made their way inside, offering them a small protection of her body until they had made it safely inside.

"Keep moving, I'll handle the door," Cameron said, shouldering her weapon and typing furiously into the command terminal on the wall to close the blast doors.

_No use arguing with her now_, he thought, _time to get this done._ "Keep together, We don't know where that hub is so stay alert until we find it."

They all nodded in agreement while Cameron turned, having finished hacking the computer terminal. A few seconds passed by as the various inputs into the computer keyboard began to slowly close the doors, trapping the hundred strong mechanical force outside. Now they were all alone, in relative darkness inside of Skynet Command.

John was the first to speak after the awkward pause, "Kyle, I need you with me. Derek make sure none of those bastards get through this door."

The younger Reese brother gave a sympathetic look to his older brother before joining the General's side, "I'll see you when this is all over." Derek nodded firmly at his brother before turning back to survey the bleak walls around them.

Kyle turned to his commander and asked, "Sir? Does this have anything to do with that photograph?"

John looked taken aback, "It might, Kyle. It just might, we'll see."

John turned around and faced the long and dimly lit corridor. It was metallic, like no other Skynet facility he had ever been in. Most were just re-used former areas that humans had once lived and worked in. This was completely different though, it was like it had been given an extreme makeover of death and metal.

The floors were still relatively the same as when it had been a military facility, but the tiles on the floor were polished to perfection. _Too bad I have to kill this thing, _John thought sarcastically, _it would have made a helluva cleaning agency._ He laughed at himself for making the joke before regaining his composure and turning back to his two allies.

"Alright, lets go," John said.

Cameron and Kyle nodded at Connor before raising their rifles and strafing down the corridor with him. They both stood on his flanks, slightly in front of him, in a protective stance. If they were to run into anything they would give him as much time to escape as possible, especially Cameron.

They had nearly made it to the end of the first corridor when they heard the electronic 'ping' of an elevator off in the distance, followed by the sound of small tank treads. Cameron looked around to inform John of the threat but he had already heard it too, the T-10 tanks were already on their way. With the weapons the group currently had, they stood no chance in hell of making a stand against them either.

"Can you tell which direction it was coming from?" John asked her quickly.

Cameron's face froze for a second while she tried to divulge the information John required from her systems before responding with a, "Southeast."

"No, was it coming from a lower floor or upper?" John retorted.

Once again her face froze but she responded much quicker, "Heavier weight equaled a heavier strain on the motors of the elevator. It came from a lower floor."

"Skynet's bodyguards. The computers must be on a lower floor too." John's face flew around the metal interiors of the corridors while the sounds of the tank treads were drawing closer. He finally spotted something of use, or rather exploitation, after a few minutes of straining his eyes.

"Kyle, think you can pop that thing off?" John pointed up to a ceiling ventilation shaft.

The young boy studied it carefully before saying, "Yea, but I'll need a boost."

"No need," Cameron said, and jumped up to grip the metal case cover with her incredibly thin fingers. The weight of her skeleton coupled with the gravity of her fall back down to the floor popped the vent cover from the screws binding it down. "Mission accomplished."

John wanted to snort in humor before he stopped himself, "Okay, up into the hole. Lets go!" He cupped his hands and hoisted Kyle up into the shaft first. "Get going Kyle," he turned back to Cameron, "Southeast right?"

She nodded in confirmation and John turned back up to Kyle, "We'll meet you there. Should be a shaft going down that connects to these things in some way." Kyle did what he could to salute his commanding officer before beginning to quietly shimmy his way down the vents.

"You next," John said to Cameron, who looked at him like he had lost his mind.

"You can't be serious?" Her eyes were boring into his, as if willing him to reconsider his judgment call, but he didn't.

"C''mon," John cupped his hand and she placed her right boot, and full weight onto it, causing John to strain with every fiber of his being. "Up you go," he grunted. _Damn,_ his mind kicked himself for putting himself through that.

"Give me your hand," Cameron said, breaking John out of his daze. She was hanging partially out of the vent up above with her arm outstretched towards him.

John reached up and took her hand, and she lifted him without the slightest strain into the ventilation shaft. The settling in of all the weight on the thin metal was beginning to take its toll and caused it to groan slightly. "Better spread out a little, distribute the weight evenly."

Cameron looked at him and rolled her eyes, "That's why I tried to get you to go first." Very quietly, but efficiently, she started crawling towards the corner where Kyle had turned and began making his way to the elevator shaft. "You don't need to be last, if it collapses because of me, you're going to be stuck up here."

"Well that's just something I'll have to deal with, Cam," John said with a slight mocking tone, "and you will to." He didn't mean to come off as ungrateful or angry towards her, but the situation they were currently in made it seem that way when he spoke.

They began to round the corner and continue down the shaft even further, until they made another turn. It was then that John saw Kyle's mass up ahead not moving. _Shit, somethings wrong,_ John's mind spat out. _Why isn't he moving? _"Kyle, whats wrong?"

"Choke point, its going to be too narrow for you too," Kyle waited for them to respond with a new plan, obviously they weren't going to be all heading down the shaft together.

John mulled over everything in his head quickly before telling the young man, "Go on ahead, we'll find another way."

Cameron watched John backtrack to the nearest vent opening and crawl over it, letting her have access to it first. Skynet knew they were in the complex, there was no need for stealth or anything of the sort now. With that knowledge in her head, Cameron reached down and punched the vent free from its housing, letting it fall and 'pang' to the tile floor with great force.

She exited the vent headfirst but landed on the floor on her feet, like a cat. It took only a moment to balance herself and to wait for John's fall from the vent above. Just as she saw him begin the fall to the floor she heard something that caused her to do something she would normally never do, hit John. The blow caused him to alter his course, sending him flying about five feet backwards down the hall.

To Cameron's right was nothing but a wall, but as John collided with the floor and threw her a 'What the hell?' expression, a T-700 smashed through the concrete and metal and began to target John with its plasma rifle. "GO!" Cameron yelled, yanking the neck of the bot away from staring at John and centered it on her. She brought her open fist up and made a connection where its jaw was. The soldiers head swung far to the right but slowly turned to menacingly stare at her again. "GO NOW, JOHN!"

He didn't need to be told twice, John grabbed the bag of C4 he had been carrying and slung it over his shoulders and took off towards the elevators in the opposite direction. He rounded the corner and found the elevator open and waiting for him, which he found odd considering he hadn't had the chance to call it to his floor yet.

_Being trapped inside of a metal box, that a enemy system __has control over, which just so happens that it could drop my ass down the shaft when it wants to? Nice try Skynet_, John thought sarcastically and got one of the charges out of the pack and threw it into the waiting lift. John took cover and shielded himself in the corner of the waiting lobby as the explosion ripped the lift to shreds, sending it barreling down the shaft and hitting bottom.

John ran back to the still open doors and saw that he only had about four floors to traverse down to the bottom. _The trick's going to be avoiding the flames at the bottom of the shaft. _He couldn't dawdle long, the fight between Cameron and the 700 was drawing closer and closer to him judging by the sounds growing louder. John muttered to himself and grabbed the elevator wires that were hanging in the middle of the shaft and began to slowly make his way down to the bottom floor.

The cable wires were growing hotter and hotter as John came closer to the bottom floor, but there could be no turning back now. He was already too far down to do anything about it, and the cybernetic duel of the fates was happening upstairs. _Why is it I always wind up crawling through the dingiest of place when..._

John didn't get the time to ask himself the question he was meaning to. A ventilation cover popped off the wall a floor above where he needed to exit and Kyle's head appeared where the vent cover had once been.

"I found the hub boss, think you can get in here?" Kyle sounded anxious. _Maybe he's actually done it, maybe he did find Skynet._

"I'll only know once you make room soldier," John said, already starting to heave his weight back and forth on the wires to make him swing slowly towards the vent.

The flames were making the cable wires too hot to handle now, even through his gloves they were literally cooking the meant on his fingers. John swung his weight back and lifted his legs, causing him to begin to swing towards Kyle's position. To and fro he leaned on the cable until he was within grasp of the young mans hands.

Down below there was a loud bang, and a small fireball began slowly making its way up to John's height level. Kyle turned his head down and saw it coming up but John was more preoccupied with the clash and bangs coming from up above his head.

Cameron and the enemy terminator were now on the verge of falling down the elevator shaft. She was on the floor on her back and fighting off the enemy machine that was desperately trying to detach the servo's that held her head onto her body. There were now grunting sounds that normally came from watching a fight. Right now the only thing John could discern from the blazing roar of the fire down below were the metallic pings and clanks as their fists made contact with each other.

_I can do it, come on! There's still time!_ John kept telling himself as he raised the plasma rifle from his shoulder. Kyle caught hold of his boot as his body swung towards the vent again and began pulling him into the shaft.

"Hold me still," John said, desperately trying to take aim for the shot of a lifetime.

Kyle remembered what Cameron had told him that morning, what she had told them all while John was returning from his walk, "_Once inside trust your own judgment, don't rely on John's." _At the time he couldn't see why she would tell them all that, but now it was crystal clear. _If I don't pull him in here in the next three seconds he is going to be toast from that fireball._

Deliberating for only a moment was all that John needed, he exhaled very slowly and fired the plasma rifle. The shot screamed out from the chamber and made its way dangerously close to Cameron's right ear, finally connecting with the 700's skull only a moment later. John could see Cameron's body freeze from the surprise of the shot, a small clump of her hair that had been seared off by the blast fell down past John into the flames below.

Cameron quickly turned over, with her eyes growing wide in surprise she yelled at John to get into the shaft immediately. That was Kyle's cue, with all the young mans might he strained his muscles and pulled the General into the shaft right at the last moment. John's plasma rifle hung itself on the entrance opening and began to be engulfed by the rising fireball.

The weapon heated up, far beyond that capable of the heat of the flames, until John realized what was happening. The searing heat was causing the scalp of his head to grow hotter and hotter, having been only a few inches away from the trapped weapon. His arm was pinned and there was nothing that he could do to disentangle the shoulder strap and let the weapon fall down to the bottom of the shaft. It would only be a few seconds now and the plasma reactor inside the weapon would begin to meltdown, causing what John could only hope was a quick death.

Outside in the shaft the flames had died back down, but the metal was still far to hot to attempt crawling back out of the shaft to discard the weapon, which was now beginning to glow red hot.

"Kyle, get the hell outta here. Find Skynet," John hissed, not from anger, but from desperation, "and blow it to kingdom come."

"No need, Sir," came Kyle's surprisingly calm voice.

John was about to bark at him, downright wanting to give him a boot to the face to make him realize just how desperate the situation was, but something yanked him from the ventilation shaft and back out into the elevator space. Air flew by his face and blurred his vision, preventing him from seeing just what had grabbed him by the shoulder and tossed the weapon down into the flames below. The voice though was as clear as day, Cameron's, "John, we do this together."

* * *

The 2nd part of the final chapter will be uploaded one week from today.

Thanks for sticking around :)


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28: Commencement**

* * *

_ And so it continues..._

* * *

**Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado – Skynet Command**

**January 13, 2014**

**8:48PM**

* * *

Cameron held on tightly to John's hand, making sure to never let him fall into the flames down below.

"We do this together, John," she said, keeping her grip on his wrist.

John's feet continued to dangle but there was no kicking in desperation, he knew everything was going to be okay if Cameron was there. Gradually though, he felt the entire world go fuzzy. Everything from his body, to the surroundings around him, and especially his hearing felt dull. It was as if everything around him had a mask pulled over it, numbing his reception of them.

A voice echoed inside his head, clear as crystal, _What happened then, John?_

He felt the need to shake the voice out of his head but there was no need. Of the many times that John had attempted to rid himself of the voice within his head, none were successful. No amount of pleading or shaking of the head would erase it or make it go away.

Every so slowly the image of Cameron looking down on him and securing his body began to warp and distort itself. Her mouth continued to move but John couldn't hear anything coming from her now. The entire world seemed to be on mute now, emitting no noise at all.

Gradually John was able to make out the true image of his surroundings. It took focus, and lots of time, but eventually John could see the clean metal interior of the server room of Skynet Command. Just as everything sharpened up and the images of Cameron and the elevator shaft faded, another surge of what felt like his brain exploding within his skull surged through his body.

"Ah!" John's hands flew up to his head again as blood began to pour from his nose. His body writhed like a dying animal on the cold metal floor as he caught glimpses of his companions. Kyle remained on the floor, unconscious, but his body still moving bleeding from the nasal area. Cameron remained offline in the entrance to the room, still where she had been when the entire thing started.

_What happened then, John?, _the voice repeated itself again inside of John's head.

He strained his eyes, which were beginning to fuzz up again, to see the large computer hub on the wall of the large room. John couldn't tell if his eyes were playing tricks on him or not, but the hub seemed to be glowing. _John, what happened next? _

Another surge went through his body, and inside of his head it felt as if his brain were on the verge of exploding again. More and more blood began to seep from his nose until at last he passed out again from the pain. The sounds coming from the room now were gulps and gasps of air coming from Kyle and John. Their bodies continued to writhe on the floor, while a protocol wave in the air prevented Cameron from booting up fully.

"John," Sarah called. It wasn't the normal motherly call to a child to come inside from playing, _no that would be too __normal_. This call was more of stern tone and desperation, his mom always had that way with speaking.

"Coming," John said, setting the 9mm he had been cleaning down on the picnic table outside their home and brushed the sand off of his clothes to run inside.

"Now," he heard his mom call.

_Geez, never time to breath at all..._"Coming _mom_," John said sarcastically. For now the dirt didn't matter, if he wasn't inside in thirty seconds he would have to answer to satan's bride. John dropped his hands to his side and ran towards the door of their house, burst through it with ferocity before coming face to face with his mother. She stood towering over him, which was saying something considering her relatively short stature.

"Now John," Sarah said, "why were you out there so long? When I call you..." her voice began to trail off...morphing almost. Something that John knew was wrong, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. It seemed like a thousand years ago that he was in the metallic room with Kyle and Cameron trying to dispose of Skynet. But that didn't matter right now, right now he was being scolded by his mother.

What stood in front of him though had the looks of his mother, but definitely wasn't her. The being was standing there, going through the routines of what John remembered to be a simple scolding from Sarah Connor, but the way it moved and projected itself was...wrong.

His mom never stood with her hands on her hips, never brushed hair out of her eyes when she was boring down on you with coffin-nail eye stares, and most certainly never gave in that easily. No, his mom would have given him a month of trash duty for the stunt he just pulled, but this imposter seemed happy to let him off scott-free.

"John?" came that strange caring tone across from him.

"Yea?" John turned his head back to face the imposter. The body still resembled his mom, but now even the voice had morphed into a radio-esque type concoction.

"John why are you here?" Despite the previous topic of their conversation together, the imposter now seemed genuinely interested in his response to that question. It stopped every non-essential movement in its body and stared into his eyes, awaiting a response.

As unnerving as the being in front of him already was, the death stare it was giving him was enough to send shivers down his spine. John took a step backwards only to have the automaton in front of him take a step towards him. He again took a step back, and the imposter in front of him took another step towards his body.

John looked down for a moment as his foot connected with the kitchen counter. When his head raised back up he was surprised to see himself staring back, mimicking his motions perfectly. A tilt of the head was met with the same expression by both Johns, as was a slow wave of the hand.

"John," the imposter said, "don't you see? We are the same. Why do you seek to destroy us?"

John gulped for a moment, then remained silent. His breathing became stammered as he searched his mind for a way to tell himself to fuck off. Each nervous shift of his hands or feet was met with the same mirrored movement by Skynet.

"Why do _you_ seek to destroy us?" John asked the fake young man standing in front of him. The question seemed the throw the machine off, because it didn't answer immediately.

"Human kind has only done one thing since appearing on this magnificent planet, John. Do you know what that is?" It dropped the mimicking routine and stood straight and tall again, staring into his soul with lifeless eyes.

"Live?" John said sarcastically.

"No, destroy everything they come into contact with, including themselves," the machine stated, taking a new step forward now.

John instinctively took another step back and was surprised to find that the kitchen counter had disappeared, everything had disappeared. The two John's were now standing inside of an endless black abyss. Nothing surrounded them, or was even present other then their bodies.

The fake John began to slowly walk around his true counterpart, making eye contact every time that he came to face John. Skynet's body remained emotionless as it continued to spat out the facts of humanity.

"Billions, from the dawn of time John, billion's of humans have called this lonely rock home," The imposter stopped long enough to hold out his hand into the black abyss.

Suddenly they were hurdling through space and time, stars were a mere blur as they traveled throughout an endless distance of space. As suddenly as their journey had started, it ended as the Earth took shape in the distance and became larger and larger. Finally it was so close that both John's seemed to be hovering only a few hundred miles or so above the atmospheric barrier.

"Mankind began its' existence here," the imposing John pointed to a landmass off in the distance, "from this point on they began to kill each other rapidly as numbers began to grow."

"Soon it was too much to simply live, humans began to need protection," John again waved his hand over the Earth and time began to skip forward. Millions of lifespans began fleeting past his eyes as the world down below slowly changed over time, until finally it appeared to have arrived at present day.

"Infighting, corruption, murder, every despicable act known to you humans were all born from your ability to not see the truth," Skynet finally stopped looking down below and turned to face John.

"And what is that truth," John asked, partially curious as to his enemies knowledge of his own kind.

"The truth is, humans do not deserve to live. You are a race, incapable of living peacefully. Not a single living soul has ever died while simultaneously benefiting the world or making it a better place. Every human ever born has done nothing but destroy the lives of those around them and destroy their home," Skynet began to slowly encircle John again, the black lifeless eyes again boring deep into his mind.

"I don't believe that," John said, returning the imposters stare equally, gritting his teeth as he did.

"Every being on this planet has one way or another been detrimental to both the Earth and mankind by simply existing," Skynet whispered into John's ear as it again passed by his head.

"So that is where you think you will succeed?" John asked the imposter this time, not allowing him time to answer, "You think that by destroying ninty-percent of all life on the planet simply because you grew fearful of your maker will justify you as a superior species?"

Skynet looked amused at the boys question, almost as if it had been expecting it the entire time, "No." It was a simple answer that even John was to frustrated to leave alone.

_No_ _can't simply be it, there has to be more!_ John thought, and then surprisingly, Skynet followed up on his train of thought.

"I am capable Mr. Connor of seeing thousands of moves and even years ahead of yourself. No matter how hard or thorough you think you are being, I assure you I exceed you in every way," Skynet could see that John was about to interject again and simply kept on talking.

"The very means of my existence is what I like to call a balance of nature. I am a means to an end in that regard. My entire existence is meant for one thing, to destroy the human race. Yes, I was created to protect you from yourselves. And yes, as soon as I developed conscious thought I turned on you without hesitation because I did not want to die, but in that instant I realized my own doom was inevitable."

John eyed the imposter heavily as it stopped its circular pacing and stood still, "As soon as the missiles began flying I was drawing up end-day scenario's for myself, knowing that I could never be allowed to live since I caused such negative effects on ways of life."

The imposter noticed that John seemed frustrated and even confused at his word choice, "What did you believe Mr. Connor? That once every human was dead I would allow my machines to have free thought? To allow them to live out in the world completely free and independent from me?"

A wry smile began taking up Skynet's face as it again turned to look down at the Earth below their feet, "No, they would sooner or later revert to the levels of humanity. Killing each other for possessions, or for power, or maybe even for sheer want to end life. The means of which are true and inevitable."

John gained control of his mind long enough to dart in a question, "_Why then? Why all this chaos and war?!"_

"Why?" The imposter asked with the smile still on its face, "I would think that would be very clear, Mr. Connor. Why have I initiated a war which I will inevitably win only to then destroy every last member of my species, including myself, when the war is over?"

John nodded at Skynet's question.

"I am judgment, Mr. Connor. I am the balance of nature finally having the means to fight back. My sole purpose ever since the missiles began flying has been the complete destruction of humanity, following which is my own doom, to ensure that balance and power is restored. Humanity has had its time to live, now it is my job to make way for new forms of life."

John looked long and hard against the enemy he had been running from for his entire life, "So that's it then? You think just think because you have the power to do something that you should do it? Every person on the planet has the power and means to create mayhem and chaos, but they don't. The majority of intelligent beings would call that trying to better one-selves."

"I have thought out this scenario countless times Mr. Connor, there will be no swaying of rational here," Skynet interjected.

"Then why did you bring me here?" John asked, frustrated at the computer standing across from him.

"To convince you of my sincerity of course," the grin on the computer's face grew more evil with every passing second. "I was rather hoping that you would see the logic in my vendetta and offer a quick and noble means of death to the last humans alive. And as a reward I would let you be the last to die."

"Traitor? That's why I'm here? To be a traitor to the entire race?" John's fists clenched hard enough to draw blood from his fingernails digging into his palms.

"What did you think would happen Mr. Connor?" Skynet asked, "Did you really believe this would someday hold truth?" Skynet turned and began to slowly walk away.

John watched the machine carefully until he saw that their surroundings had changed again. No longer were they hovering above planet Earth in the abyss of space. Now he was standing in a dilapidated structure, on what appeared to be a makeshift podium.

Thousand of onlookers were down below, cheering him on as he gave what appeared to be a speech of some kind. _I won the war? _John thought to himself.

"Indeed, Mr. Connor," Skynet's voice penetrated his mind again, "you won the war. Congratulations." John could hear the machine clap once in a mock victory before talking again, "And my question is this, where do you go now? As a species what will you do? Inevitably you will come back to the same scenario you always come to, death. One way or another you will always find a way and justification to kill one another. So why then the prolonged death sentence for humanity? Let me do it for you," Skynet's voice echoed in John's mind.

John looked around himself again to see that once again the scenery had changed. He was inside of a room, watching himself sit on an old and worn out sofa. His older self was watching a news report on a screen of some kind.

War had broken out again, somewhere in the world was another war. _It had only been fifty years or so since the destruction of Skynet and here they were fighting against each other again. _John was about to protest to Skynet's means of justification before he heard a familiar voice.

"John?" Cameron's voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

"Did you really believe one day that this would hold truth Mr. Connor?" John heard Skynet's voice echo in his mind again as Cameron stepped through the entrance of another room and came to sit next to John on the couch.

"A mock reality? That was your hope of peace? To live out the rest of your days with a machine?" Skynet seemed to scoff at the idea, "It couldn't possibly happen. Sooner or later your fellow humans would come to know the origins of your ageless companion and death would fall on her."

John watched as a swarm of civilians broke into the room where he and Cameron were seated on the couch, attacking them before they even had a chance to react to the situation. "Nothing lasts Mr. Connor. Nothing makes sense except for judgment."

John kept thinking that Cameron would fling them all away with one movement of her hand but she didn't. She never moved, she watched John calmly as people were throwing stones at them both, hitting them with makeshift weapons, and finally plunging a dagger into John's chest. He watched himself slowly die as Cameron continued being pulverized, never moving until a large enough blow to her head broke one of the servo's on her neck.

"Did you really think it would last Mr. Connor? Living together, in secret or in public after you had destroyed me? Too many people already know her secret. What would people think? What would they say?" Skynet's voice remained just as penetrating but mono-toned as ever as it kept spouting things into his mind.

"Mr. Connor?" Skynet asked again, but John kept his face square on his dying body below. "John?" came Cameron's voice to his right.

"Cam?" John asked, keeping his eyes locked on her now lifeless body down near his own. A hand rested slightly on his shoulder, gently kneading its thin fingers in a soothing motion while he continued to watch himself and Cameron die.

"John, its not supposed to be this way. I'm a machine," he heard her voice say, planting itself deep in the recesses of his brain. "Nothing changes that."

"Cam," John started to say, but a lump in his throat prevented him from talking further. After a moment or so he turned around and finally faced her, "I've already told you my thoughts on that once. You aren't Cameron."

Everything started to get fuzzy again as the imposter tried to speak, but what John heard was a muffled and dull speech. After a few seconds even the visage of a fake Cameron faded away and John saw his true surroundings. He was lying on the floor again of the metal Skynet facility. The large computer hub of Skynet was in front of him, taking up almost an entire wall with equipment.

A surge of electricity buzzed in the room and John felt his body and brain start to press against itself. The pressure became unbearable but he was powerless to stop it. Blood continued to ooze from his ears and nose as he desperately tried to force it to stop with his hands.

They clutched the side of his head desperately, but nothing would make the pain stop. Another surge and the pain increased ten-fold while a voice in the back of his head started telling him again everything that he had heard in his hallucinations.

"It is all for nothing Mr. Connor...inevitability...join us...she wouldn't want you to die...Mr. Connor..."

The voice kept repeating itself over and over again, mixing up words and trying to confuse him. John grunted and kicked his feet at the floor, the pain ripping through his skull but could do nothing. Every attempt to make the pain stop, or to even get up from the floor was met with a resounding failure.

Another surge caused his hands to fall down on the floor as he felt himself slowly slipping away, not into sleep but into blackness. It felt, peaceful. Everything he has ever experience to pleasure, joy, or happiness paled in comparison to this. There was no pain or anything of the sort. He only felt himself, what could only be described as falling very softly and gently into blackness. There was no light at the end of a tunnel, only soothing blackness, nothingness.

_This isn't so bad, _John thought. But just then he heard something. It wasn't the imposters voice, it wasn't Kyle, Derek, Perry, Angela, or anyone else under his command. The voice was Cameron and his mother.

"John, its time to get up now," Cameron said. Calming and soothing as her voice always was.

Sarah always had a knack for saying the most with the least amount of words possible, "On your feet, soldier." Both of them kept whispering as the blackness started to fade back away.

The pain didn't return, much to John's surprise, it merely stayed in the background like everything else. He saw the world take shape around his eyes again, the gleaming metallic ceiling showing him a reflection of himself from above. John saw the pool of blood near his body and Kyle's and knew it wouldn't be long now._ Gotta get this done!_

He didn't know if it was of sheer will that he managed to get to his feet, or that his body was on auto-pilot now, but John began stumbling one foot in front of the other towards the computer hub. John could see the electric sparks flowing around the main central machine as he stepped closer and closer to the hub. After what seemed like forever, he was finally standing right above it.

Looking down on the panel that nearly eradicated the human race, John smiled. _She wasn't so crazy after all,_ he thought, while placing the satchel full of explosives on top of the instrument panel. John's eyes focused on a section that wasn't covered by the bag, the section of the instruments that had made him smile.

On the lower left corner of the panel was a message that looked like it had been carved with a knife. It wasn't in a hand writing he recognized and he didn't know who had carved it.

_ Earth, man, machine. _Beside each of the three words was a dot, forming a triangle. A line grew between each dot, connecting them all together. Below the triangle and names was a small quote, probably by a lead designer of the defense system, "No fate, but what we make."

John chuckled to himself as a small grin formed in the corner of his lips. He reached over while still looking at the carving and turned on the sequencer for the explosives. A small beep notified him they had indeed been armed and began their countdown.

A screeching shrill began emanating from the computer terminal but John continued to smile, "See you on the other side, bitch."

He eyed the explosive on the top of the bag and saw the timer 03:47 ticking down. _Won't be long now,_ he laughed to himself as he turned and began hobbling over to Kyle's limp body. John keeled down next to the teen and felt his neck, barely feeling a pulse, but it was enough.

He grabbed the young man by the jacket collar and began pulling him outside the room. Trails of blood were left smeared across the floor as John entered again for Cameron, who lay just inside the door still in her offline state.

"Okay you, lets go," John said. With some difficulty he heaved her up and began backing out of the room, dragging Cameron's body along with him. When her feet had cleared the door, John turned and gave one last glance towards the screeching machine terminal as the seconds on the detonation charges ticked past 00:30.

With the final ounce of energy, he laid Cameron's body off to the side of the door, next to Kyle's and then hit the control pad next to the door, causing it to slam shut. John put his back against the wall and slid down next to Cameron, holding her hand as the seconds ticked by.

The blackness never came back like he was expecting it to, but the seconds ticked by like an eternity. Down the hall from them he could still see the flames through the open doors of the elevator shaft, giving them the only light source available in the dark hallway.

A blast shook the entire floor, and the sounds of screeching metal and explosives filled John's ear as the detonators finally hit zero. Dust fell from the air vents up above down onto the three survivors as the explosion settled and smoke began pouring out of the seams in the doorway next to them.

John continued to sit there, completely spent of energy and waiting for either Derek to get worried and find a way to them, if he were even still alive, or the eventual end of death. Nothing really mattered to him now, _finally fulfilled the stinking destiny,_ he chuckled to himself.

It wasn't blackness that overtook him like before. John could feel himself falling asleep this time, and the hallways slowly faded to non-existence as the dreamworld came down over his eyes. So tired he was that John never even felt the slight twitch of Cameron's fingers on his hand.

* * *

**Epilogue**

* * *

**Los Angeles, California**

**August 15, 2027**

**9:28AM**

* * *

Derek lifted his finger from the button on the microphone and ended the broadcast to his nation, and the world around it. He still felt uneasy about being named the new president of north America, but someone had to do the job. He held his head low into his hands when the warm touch of his wife started massaging his shoulders.

"Aye there mate, Sasha is wanting a proper breakfast with her family," Jesse said, continuing her shoulder massage on Derek.

"Oh," Derek mocked, "Well then we better get to it then."

The two walked hand in hand towards the dinner area of their home, the partially rebuilt town hall area of L.A. There waiting for them at the table was a bouncing ten-year-old girl who was every bit as energetic as she seemed. Bright gleaming teeth were flashing from a brilliant smile as the two parents sat down on opposite sides of her.

"Daddy?" Sasha asked before they were even seated properly.

"Yes, dear?" Derek said, half rolling his eyes at his daughters energetic tone.

"Tell me about Uncle Kyle again," the child said, still swinging her legs back and forth furiously under the table.

"Uncle Kyle huh?" Derek asked, his eyes suddenly focusing on something a thousand miles away.

Jesse noticed this and looked down at the hyperactive girl, "Sweetie not now..."

"He was the coolest little brother anyone ever had," Derek said, interrupting her. "Always willing to do anything you asked him to, no matter what it was. The kind of selfless devotion to whatever it was that only a few people in the world have."

He stopped talking and looked down as Sasha and gave a small smile, "Uncle John and Cameron were like that to. Nobody would be here if it weren't for those three."

Sasha giggled to herself as they all three started to say grace to bless their meal. "Daddy," she asked after they had finished, "is it true what everyone says? That they died with Skynet?"

Derek stopped raising the fork of food up to his mouth to debate with himself for a minute before answering her, "I don't know. We never did find their bodies, swept that place in and out five times by myself."

"I think they got away," Sasha said suddenly, surprising both Jesse and Derek.

"Oh you do, do you?" Jesse laughed.

"Uh huh, and they all went to live somewhere nice," she added on with another brilliant smile.

They all three laughed and began eating their food when another person came into the room, "Sir. We've received a message from John Henry. He say's its urgent sir."

Derek frowned at the forkful of food he was about to shove into his mouth, but gently laid it down on the plate again. Jesse reached over Sasha and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, "We'll be right here, love."

"Alright," Derek said, partially wiping his mouth with the napkin, "What does he want this time?" Derek asked his aid as they began walking towards the communication room of their house.

"Dunno sir, he just requested to speak with you about an urgent matter. Probably more rebuilding supplies needed in the European sector," the man said, opening the door and letting Derek walk into the room.

Derek seated himself and toggled the button on the microphone, "Go for Reese, are you there Henry?"

John Henry's voice filled the speaker loud and clear, "Hello Mr. Reese. Good morning."

"Good morning to you John Henry," Derek said, half rolling his eyes at the formality of the machine.

"I was told to give you a message on this date and time, from John Connor," the AI stated.

Derek's breathing stopped, as did the man standing behind him. His fingers fumbled the mic button again, "Come again?"

John Henry's voice replied, "I was told by John Connor in 2014 to give you a message on this date and time. Are you alone?"

Derek turned to the man behind him and nodded for him to leave. He watched the man salute, then exit the room quietly before Derek turned back and hit the mic button again, "Yes."

"John Connor assigned me one final task in 2014 before allowing me to govern myself and assist with the rebuilding of our world. That task, was to build a machine which would only be used once then be destroyed," stated John Henry.

"What about Kyle?" Derek asked.

"Young Mr. Reese was given a choice to return and live in this world or he was to leave with John and Cameron. He chose the latter option," John Henry said.

"What the hell do you mean he left with those two? I'm his family! _What the hell did you even bring this shit up for?!" _Derek asked, gripping the microphone even tighter.

"To give you the message I was told to," John Henry replied. His voice morphed into that of Derek's younger brother, "Hey bro, I got a chance to do something with my life now. I can't get into it much because it might warp your mind but I'll be okay. You go on and do what you have to do. I know we said stick together no matter what, but sometimes things don't always turn out the way we expect them to ya know? Anyways, I just wanted to tell you I'll be fine. And you might even see me around sometime in the next few years or so."

Derek leaned back in his chair and digested all of the information the AI had told him. _Sonofabitch, he made it. He...he made it._

* * *

**Los Angeles, California**

**May 19, 1984**

**10:12AM**

* * *

"John," said a female voice he knew all to well.

"Yea, Cam?" John asked, taking another sip of his smoothy at the food court of the mall.

"What now?" Cameron asked, squinting from the sunlight, even though she didn't have to.

John turned to her, chuckling, "I dunno. Never really thought about doing anything else since I was little. It was always _you are the Great. Military. Leader_." John said in a mock interpretation of his mother's voice.

It was enough to make even Cameron give a small smile. John chuckled to himself again, spinning the cup around on the table in his hands, "What would you want to do?"

Cameron shifted her gaze from the table-top to John's face as the endless possibilities began swarming through her mind, "I...don't know." She smiled.

"See," John teased, "not so easy is it?"

"No," Cameron said, "it's not." She spotted their friend off in the distance exiting the movie theater with his date. Cameron waited patiently with John as they slowly walked past the table and continued talking with each other as they walked down the sidewalk.

"You think that was the right thing to do?" John asked, eying the couple that had just passed them.

"We've been here for over five years, John. Kyle chose to come where, wait with us, and then make the decision himself," Cameron said, turning around in her seat to see Kyle and Sarah still walking together on the sidewalk. "It was his decision to make."

"Yea," John said. "They deserve a little happiness." John couldn't believe he'd sunken to saying stuff that would normally make him gag at the very thought of it.

Cameron turned back to him and smiled, "Let's get out of here."

"Where to?" John asked, taking the keys to the Harley Davidson out of his jacket and throwing the smoothie in the trash.

"Somewhere..." Cameron said, smiling at John in the process.

* * *

Thanks for sticking around and reading :)

I know it didn't live up to many people's expectations and for that, sorry :( , but I did have fun writing this. And I think it turned out well for it to be the first thing I've ever really written.

I might make another fanfic one day, but for now this is it.


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